Rakshasa
by Nena Camadera
Summary: In another timeline, a man goes mad do to a demon's meddling, forcing a reluctant goddess into facing old fears and instigating the rage of another. Monsters appear in all shapes and sizes, but it is the one that guises itself as a human that should be feared the most. AU.
1. Veni

_Disclaimer:I own nothing._

_Warnings of a Madwoman: This story was originally my portion of the AMGReboot. I recently stumbled across it while cleaning out a hard drive and decided to post it for kicks and giggles. This will be a three-shot stand alone fic that will not be continued and holds mature themes. It takes place after Keiichi has met Urd, who's been living a good chunk of her life on the mortal realm by choice. Urd is running a large multinational company that is not always legal and has issues containing her more demonic half do to an inherited addiction to chaos. Belldandy and Keiichi are still trying to adapt to their forced living conditions with each other and have only just finished refurbishing the shrine at this time. For all the fact that the duo are slowly starting to understand one another, they still don't get along as well as they could. Do to an unknown event in the past, Belldandy is a second-category goddess similar to Urd and Skuld. Keiichi, in turn, was raised in an abusive/neglectful household with Megumi, one of the few people he cherishes in his life. Megumi has moved to Nekomi in an effort to follow her brother in escaping their parents as well as staying close to her older brother. She's suspicious of the relationship between Bell and Keiichi, believing Keiichi is sheltering Belldandy from some 'trouble' the woman has gotten herself into.  
_

_This is Marller's introduction chapter._

* * *

_Near the border of the Czech Republic_

Life sucks. Then you die.

It was a constant truth; one Winola Färber had heard her father utter time and time again throughout her childhood and well into adulthood, where she found herself in one failed relationship after another, leading to her latest disaster with a man who was a better swindler than a lover. The man had stolen more than just her bank account. Winola had not only been evicted from her house, but also thrown into debt, her mailbox filled with purchases she'd never made.

She'd done the best she could, given the circumstances; contact the police and call the card companies and the bank. Yet it was no easy task baring through the harassment about car purchases and fancy restaurants, hotels and fur coats.

_It will work out. It will get better. She'd thought to herself. Bare through it and it will pass._

Those were her mother's words, spoken just as many times as Winola's father's during times when the money grew tight and her stomach grew cramped and it looked like they wouldn't make it to the next paycheck. Yet the words always proved true in the end, and so Winola found herself repeating those words as well, hoping perhaps a little of her mother's old magic might resurface in her own hard times.

It didn't pass.

…Or perhaps it did, only in a manner she'd not expected.

The woman had been homeless at the time, living with a friend who'd found her a job working as a secretary for one of the local white collar businesses in the city. It had been on her lunch break where a stranger had approached her, a man with kind eyes and a gentle face. A priest, he'd claimed to be, of a religion she'd never heard of nor cared to learn. The man had asked to share her bench with him for lunch, and against her better judgment, she'd allowed it.

Winola remembered that day well; a beautiful cloudless day, the first scents of flowers blossoming making the air sweet and dream-like. She remembered how they'd gotten to talking; about life, tragedy, success, and above all, religion. She couldn't remember what words were said, only that somewhere in their conversation he'd convinced her to visit his church. She'd promised she would, having left the little bench outside her work office feeling lightheaded and peaceful.

It never even occurred to her that she'd never even learned his name.

Yet sure enough the days passed and come the weekend, Winola found herself wandering out and about the town, walking without direction until her feet came to a halt outside a grand cathedral. It bore no name, tucked away on the outskirts of the city and away from the more local streets and walks. Yet despite that fact, somehow Winola knew that the grand church in front of her was that of the priest. One who held no name and who's face was a clouded mystery in her memory's eye.

The woman entered, walking past great portraits of saints and patrons, none of whom she recognized. It was almost as though there was something off about them, yet Winola could not tell what it was. The blonde walked pass worshipers who nodded politely to her and priests who smiled kindly to her before entering the worship hall and finding _her_ priest, recognized not so much for his face as it was a simple _knowing_.

The room was filled with dark pews the color of a rich mahogany, cool and smooth to the touch as her fingers grazed across their surface. Glass murals of men and women shown light into the center, providing all the light needed for worship. And so it was she found the priest from before, his back to her as he kneeled before an altar resting in the center of a podium.

He rose as she called out a greeting to him, blocking the odd altar from her eyes-there was something off about that one too-and approaching her with open arms.

There was conversation, filled with laughter and pleasantries, an ease to the air that made Winola relax as the nameless priest toured the church with her, pointing out a saint here, a worshiper there, all of which, while pleasant, held names that alluded her mind regardless of how she tried to memorize them. The woman left the church that day with a sense of peace and belonging, filled with a sense of pleasant surrealism that stayed with her throughout the day and well into the night. When her head finally hit the pillow and sleep slowly seeped into the recesses of her mind, her final thoughts were of the church and its patrons, and how nice it would be to return there some time in the not-so-distant future.

It would be her final thought before she disappeared that night, naught to be seen again until she was discovered mad and screaming by the local authorities.

* * *

It was hot inside the church. Blistering hot, almost. Outside a small snowdrift had started, yet inside it remained as hot and dry as a desert. Torches flickered in the darkness and imps danced to the cackles of the flames in the shadows they produced, providing an audience to all those present within the worship hall. Torchlight flickered off glass portraits of men with too many limbs and animalistic qualities to them, of monsters with horns and long tongues, and of demons with dragon wings and scales. Glass skin glistened and shined while glossy eyes glowing from inside the creatures' snarling faces. The stained-glass monsters watched as men entered, moving the many pews to the edge of the room from where the rested. Grunting and sweating, one by one the intruders moved the dark wood around the great hall, forming a wooden perimeter that shown red in the flickering light.

Dressed in robes the black of night, cowls of an equal shade masking their faces from view, the men gathered and formed a loose circle in the center of the hall. A hollow _gong_ echoed throughout the chamber and from the entrance three people appeared: two of their fellows, dressed and sweating in their thick black robes, guiding a woman as nude as the night was cold, her step uncertain and her brown eyes holding the glazed look of one not wholly present in mind.

The cult had been created fifty years ago after a local archeologist had stumbled across an old catacomb deep within the surrounding mountains. The man had discovered a book filled with archaic writings and arcane images depicting creatures that did not often grace the world. After a full translation of the text, he'd discovered the grimoire contained a listing on how to summon the images depicted. Further research of the catacombs revealed several artifacts mentioned in the old writings claiming to act as a gate for some of those very demons.

He'd learned the spells and out of a morbid sense of curiosity had made an attempt at casting one. The old cow he'd attempted to light on fire had smelled very little like the roasting slabs of meat he'd often found himself consuming-more like a mixture of badly burned skin, acid, feces, and a bitter scent he would later associate with the raw emotion that was fear.

He'd stopped eating beef after that.

But he'd only begun to master the spells in his new book.

And now, after many a year creating a cult and watching his influence soar, tonight was to be the first attempt to see if one of the ancient artifacts worked.

The air was heavy with the scent of smoke and flame, incense and sweat, and below those, a lingering scent of fear and piss and blood and an unusual odor that one could not identify without first meeting it's source. The combination combined into an almost sickly sweet and smoky smell, one that infiltrated the mind and let loose haunting shadows of creatures from long ago, nipping at the old reptile brain and sending an instinctive feeling of 'danger' running down the back of the spine.

The cult members had grown used to the feeling long ago.

The woman was too drugged to even notice its existence.

The circle of worshipers opened to allow the trio inside their circle, forming a 'u' that quickly closed as the newcomers centered themselves within the ring. The new trio nestled safely inside the circle, as one the worshipers turned to face the podium, looking to the lone figure who stood in its center, observing the group from beneath a cowl the color of freshly-drawn blood. Their leader, a man who'd discovered an old catacomb once upon a lifetime ago, smiled. Dressed in a robe as red as his cowl, the man approached the front of the small uprising, his walk the slow and deliberate gate of a man who owned the world. Dark eyes observed the woman, recalling how they'd met and his fortune in discovering a person filled with a misery that suited one of the demons in his book. Tonight would be the night.

Tonight would be the demon's night.

In front of him, resting before the steps leading down to his followers, an altar stood. It was here he paused, the altar just reaching his waist and resting on a small table covered in a rich satin cloth. The structure consisted of a mirror raised vertically, its reflective surface decorated with ruins and sigils of all shapes and sizes. It rested within a bronze inlay that dully reflected the light of the many torches in the hall.

Beneath the mirror a skull rested, bleached white with age and holding the elongated snout and various canines of a predator from long ago. At some point in its existence, perhaps in life, perhaps in its afterlife, someone had drilled a hole in the top of its head. Smoke trickled out of it, the light of the flame resting inside the skull visible only from the reflection in the mirror, covered so heavily in arcane symbols one had to squint to see the yellow of the flame. Light from within caused old eye sockets to flow and flicker with an unholy sight, and angrily smoke seethed from its jaws and nose canal-an angry dragon resting inside the skull of a long departed animal. The smoke rose and swirled from the beast, creating a miasma of demons and monstrosities whose eyes glowed like and whose jaws hung gaping and hungry as they leered down at their audience. Beasts that may or may not exist, they glared down at the people gathered before them from their smoky residence, held back only by the sheer will of the non-existent. It would take only one person to will them all into being, and should they become corporeal...

The red priest's hands flew through the smoke, banishing the monsters and demons that so wished to take form and causing the smoke to twirl and dance around his fingers. In one hand he held a long string of bones: claws and fangs and little bones with holes drilled into their sides, threaded together by a golden string and made into a rosary of an arcane ancestry. In the other he held a book-_his_ book-that had become his bible the day he'd discovered it, and whose words still filled him with a sense of otherworldly wonder and desire. The man led the chant, reading words from his Book and speaking a language that should have died many a century ago. His voice rose and fell in song, and with each peak, with each fall, the bones in his hand shook and rattled, joining him in song and laughter that only he could hear.

And as he did, as one the ring moved forward, moving to the first step before breaking into a 'u' once more and allowing the trio-the woman still supported on either side by her two guides- to continue up the stairs, gently guiding her up steps on legs that had forgotten how to climb with all the kindness of a newborn.

A soft murmur had risen around them, around _her_, as the others joined their leader in his song-chant, muttering words they didn't know and following a tune that alluded them, their eyes trailing after the woman as step by step, she drew closer to the altar.

It was here, on this final step, the duo lowered her to her knees, easing her down and into the center of a pentagram drawn in salt. Here she was eye-level with the skull, and as the duo released her arms the woman swayed to and fro, back and forth. Yet unsteady though she was, the woman did not fall, instead easing into a balance she did not have as she joined her peers, mouthing words that her sane mind did not know.

Her companions stepped out of the pentagram's circle, and as they did a hush fell upon those that watched from below, leaving only the woman and the red priest to chant and sing, until it was only the woman, spurred on by the rattle and shake of bones and claws. The smoke was blowing in her face now, smelling of fires that could scald the soul and stone that burned the flesh, and she inhaled it as though it were the purest of air. Taking breath after deep breath, voices whispered in her ears as she stared into those flickering red sockets, where flashes of a world not her own danced behind her eyes.

Something loose and cool fell across her shoulders and in between her breasts as she muttered and stared, and the priest slowly stepped away from the altar, his hands empty of the bone-rosary that now hung from the woman's neck. The room had become silent save for the soft song-chant of the woman at the altar-not even the torches of the room daring to make sound lest they break the enchantment.

And than, from either side of her, where her two guides still stood posed and ready, came a sudden burst of motion. As one, two great and terrible daggers appeared in their hands, etched in runes identical to those of the mirror, and as one they drove them straight into the woman's body. One dove into her back whilst the other thrust itself into the victim's chest. And embedded they left them, even as the woman left fourth a gurgled gasp. Yet the woman remained where she kneeled, neither flailing about in screams and howls or collapsing on top of herself to die. Rather she stayed as she was, staring into the skull, staring _through_ the skull and to the mirror behind it.

The red eyes of her reflection, awe-struck and filled with pain, stared back.

And then, to her amazement, her reflection spoke. _You're not going to let them do this to you, are you?_ She could feel her own lips mouthing the words of her reflection, masked and bound by the many glyphs and runes that covered its surface._ After everything that has happened to you? Is this how it will end? In a meaningless death for a cause that was never your own?_ She felt tears swell at the corner of her eyes and watched her reflection shed them, two streaks of moisture that glistened in the torchlight. And then she watched those red eyes-burning, heated eyes, like bright coals from the pits of hell itself-narrow in rage. _You cannot allow this to go unchallenged!_ A snarl spread across her reflections delicate features, and for all she could feel her face twisted into the very expression, she could not suppress the sudden fear in her breast that arose from the look.

_Blood for blood, I say! They wish for a sacrifice? Let us give them what they so desperately desire!" _From the reflection, a hand reached out to her, long and elegant with nails that ended in points like claws, and with a strength of the possessed, so too did she, reaching past the skull, whose breath was warm and moist against her bare skin, and touching the surface of the mirror and feeling the warm flesh of another person as two hands met.

A sound too awful to be laughter echoed throughout the worship room.

And Winola Färber's last conscious thoughts of that night were those of her father, his old, tired voice echoing back to a time where the demons of life were little more than money in a bank and food on a table.

"_Life sucks. Then you die."_

* * *

_It was dark. _

_Or maybe he was just blindfolded, Keiichi didn't know._

_What he did know was that he was stumbling around in his blindness, searching for walls that might give his hands some sort of guidance on where to go. Yet nothing came; his fingers brushed no walls nor did his body crash into any. He might as well have been walking through a void._

_Somewhere, off to his left perhaps, or maybe right in front of his nose, a woman's laughter echoed throughout the darkness. Yet though he searched, eyes straining against the encompassing darkness, there was nothing to note the woman's presence. The mechanic called out to her, hoping the owner of the laughter might seek him out and act as a guide, only to discover his voice was soft and muffled, as though he were calling out to her with a mouth covered by a pillow. More laughter came, harder, harsher, as though the woman was laughing at him, and then that too faded away._

_And with the oncoming silence, something else took the place of the laughter._

_It was a howling sort of screech, one he knew, as only those dreaming knew, was not from any creature from his world. No, these were Hunters, creatures from a much darker, deadlier place. He needed to be careful, be quiet, lest the Hunters notice him. For if they noticed him, they would hunt him down and kill him. And there was no coming back from the dead. _

_And so the college student continued his walk, his pace slow, steps silent, and his heart ramming in his throat; for now the young man could see, and what he saw were shadows in the darkness: shadows that left after-images and were darker than the darkness that hid him. Shadows with long snouts and gaping maws lined with sharp, blinding white teeth, their canines as long as his hands. Shadows that walked on two legs at times, shadows that walked on four legs at others, and all of them sightless as they hunted. They ran past the youth in the dark, some of them far, some so close he touch them, knowing that if he did they would be upon him, they would devour him, and then he would be a Hunter too; racing along on two legs and on four, seeking out the prey his master scented him on, and-_

_And they were gone._

_No more passed him, and frozen as he was, Keiichi watched as the final shadows dissolved into the surrounding darkness, leaving the man alone once more._

_Then came the scream, and Keiichi was running towards it, chasing after the very monsters he'd hidden from, now racing after them with a fear and rage that came unbidden. For he knew the owner of that scream, knew the owner's voice better than anyone as one of the few people he cared for more than life itself._

"_Megumi!" Keiichi shouted into the blackness, his heart in his throat and his gasps making his voice raw. Somewhere ahead of him, the mechanic heard his sister call out to him, and with it came the ravenous snarls of hungry beasts. The screams grew louder, filled with the mind-numbing terror of one who knew their life was about to end._

_Keiichi ran faster._

_His progress was slow. His legs burned and the air felt like thick molasses. Megumi's screams grew louder and more desperate, her voice a desperate cry that tightened Keiichi's chest painfully. "Megumi! Stop! Leave her alone!" Keiichi's voice was a shriek, one as desperate as Megumi's own, rising and cracking above the vicious howls and snarls of the Hunters. _

_And then, abruptly, the screams were cut off._

"_No!" Keiichi's voice was a long and mournful wail. The air grew light, and he ran faster then he'd ever thought possible, free of the bonds that once limited him. Yet despite the new-found freedom he knew already he was too late. Knew already his little sister Megumi was dead and beyond his help. Still he ran on; his sibling's name a scream in his throat that would not leave, mindless of Hunters who'd taken her from him, careless of the attention he might or might not draw._

_He saw her._

_Her body was laid out in front of him, as illuminated as if the high-noon sun itself bathed the woman in its light. And as he grew closer, Keiichi began to see the extent of the damage. Her torso had been cleaved up by the long furrows of claws. Bloody remains he recognized as her lungs, her intestines, glistened in a light that had no source. The heart was missing; devoured by the Hunters, he knew, just as they'd consumed her liver. _

_They hadn't touched her face. And now those dark eyes-those same dark eyes he saw whenever he looked in a mirror-those eyes that once held such a spark of life were empty, dark and glazed over with death. _

"_No..."_

_Keiichi fell to his knees, feeling something constrict his heart, his chest, his throat, as a broken mew escaped his mouth and his eyes burned with moisture. Gently, a hand reached out to stroke Megumi's cheek, speckled with droplets of blood that had dried and crumbled at his touch, coating his fingers in red. _

_The tears came, and a broken sob choked its way into the air, and the man let loose a howl. One filled with rage and sorrow, grief and despair. _

_The howl of a broken man._

_And as it died, so too did the sobs return, and in the darkness, surrounded by Hunters ready to devour his heart, his liver, Keiichi wept for his sister._

"_You were too late for her." A voice, thick and rough and strangely feminine, teased in the darkness. "I wonder though...if you cannot even save one so close to you...would you even bother to save one forced into your company?" The voice mocked, and when Keiichi closed his eyes, rubbing away the moisture, he saw a pair of red feline eyes glaring at him from behind his eyelids. When he opened them, the eyes didn't disappear._

_This. This was the source of the Hunters. The master, the one who sent them after his sister. Keiichi knew this only with the logic of dreams, and so he returned the glare full force, his face twisting into the angry snarl of a man seeking vengeance. He would attack the eyes if he could. Yet he also knew that from where they watched was a place the man could not touch, and so he glared up defiantly into those red orbs. "I'll protect even the ones I hate, if it means hurting you." His voice was low and haunting, and Keiichi was surprised at the amount of hate in it._

_Yet the eyes seemed undaunted by his tone. Or perhaps he just could not read the emotion in the angry orbs. "Very well then." The voice growled. "Let us see how well you hold your promises."_

_Another voice rose from the darkness now, one he did not recognize at first, before slowly dawning on him as the voice of Verthandi, calling out to him from the darkness. Dark eyes widened as the goddess called out to him once more, closer this time but still too far to see, and once more his eyes narrowed in rage and hate to the glaring orbs that filled his vision. He pointed to them, pointed _through_ them. "I'll fucking kill you." His voice was tight with rage, and his heart leaped with exhilaration as the words left his throat. "Mark my words. If something happens to her, I'll find you and I'll kill you without a second thought."_

"_You're running out of time if you want to save her, boy."_

_And the eyes were gone and Keiichi was running, his own voice screaming a warning that tore painfully from his throat as around him once more, the Hunters appeared; fine miasmas of dark mist that raced with him, snarling and snapping at each other now, at him, yet none coming so close as to attack him. They howled, and he screamed with them, uncaring now if they noticed him or not, hoping only to distract them so _that_ woman might escape, where he'd failed his sister. _

"_Not this time!" He ran at one, even as long silver dagger-teeth snapped viciously at him. Grabbing the wisps drifting from the beast's head, he tugged, jumped, and the man rode atop its back, where the Hunter left him. It galloped forward on four legs before switching to two, and in the midst of the pack of monsters, Keiichi came upon their next prey; a woman who burned with a light so bright it blinded, her face an expression of trepidation that seared an after-image behind closed eyes._

_He called out to her once more, not in the name his conscious body had dubbed her as, but by her true name, the ones gifted by the Powers That Be, in a land where there were no limits on what could be done. And she looked to him, blue meeting brown, and riding on an avalanche of beasts and monsters, he told her to run._

_She did not._

_Instead she narrowed her blue eyes at him, in that same manner he saw daily when he did something displeasing to the goddess, and she held her ground, a great golden staff in one hand that Verthandi swooped down in front of her. The Hunters descended on her, Keiichi an unwilling accomplice upon their backs. One by one Verthandi thrust the pole out, striking beast after beast and watching them dissolve into the ghostly white specters of men and women; souls unfortunate enough to have fallen prey to the Hunters' master._

"_Tell me, what is a god to a man?" The master's voice rang through the air once more as Verthandi lashed out again and again, her movements growing slow with fatigue and the monsters slowly overwhelming her. "Would not a man rather place his faith in something solid? Something he can hold and feel and know will give him power, will give him his riches, rather than something he cannot see and who would ignore his prayers?"_

_A beast, the one in front of Keiichi and his mount, sunk its fangs into the goddess' arm. The woman screamed in pain, and with a shout of his own, Keiichi kicked his Hunter in the neck, driving it into the brunette's assailant._

"_Man would sooner forget a god, just as he believes that the Gods have forgotten him. Is it not better to forsake, then to be forsaken? Just as these children have?"_

_The beast tossed him from where Keiichi rested on its back, and the man fell to the ground, landing on his shoulder and feeling no pain on impact. Rolling to his stomach, Keiichi pushed himself up only to feel large paws shove him to the ground. They were going to trample him, the man realized with a panic. _

_And they did, rushing to the goddess in a wave, overwhelming her fatiguing body and hiding her in a wave of darkness._

_Keiichi cried out to her once more, crawling, stumbling, reaching for her._

_Yet it was all for naught; the many Hunter bodies kept him pressed to the ground, and he watched as the light that was a goddess was extinguished before his very eyes. _

"_Now tell me this boy. What is a man to a god?"_

_He could not answer the voice's question._

_With no more prey to sustain them, the Hunters turned their non-gaze inwards, to the very man who lay beneath their feet._

"_Or perhaps the real question is, what is a man to a woman?"_

_And Keiichi's only response was a scream as the Hunters descended upon him._

* * *

It was a scream that woke him up.

And it took Keiichi approximately five seconds to realize, drenched in sweat and tangled in damp sheets that felt close to strangling him, that the screams were coming from him.

Immediately his hands flew to his mouth, muffling the screams before they had the chance to wake Belldandy up, if she'd not already been awoken by his initial cries. However, as he halted his vocal cords and the shrine grew silent once more, no other sounds of life graced the student's ears. Nothing but the beat of his heart, which pounded in his head and throbbed in his neck, and the sound of his labored breathing.

Somewhere to his left his alarm clock shone _04:30_ in bright neon green lights, and carefully Keiichi eased himself from the tangled mess of his futon, looking over his shoulder at one point when one shadow flickered oddly, pausing at another point when another displayed a monstrous figure that twitched every now and then.

At one point Keiichi could have sworn he caught the white flash of fangs from it.

Yet both were illusions of his own mind, and so telling himself that and ignoring the fact that the college student felt like he was five years old once more, Keiichi finally was able to escape the binds of his blankets and stand once more. His clothes felt unpleasantly cool against his skin, yet the mechanic made no move to change, the sensation as real as it was uncomfortable.

The man ran a hand through his hair. "Calm down Keiichi, it was a dream, that's all. Go to the bathroom, get some water, and go back to sleep. It wasn't real." The sound of his own voice didn't reassure him as he'd hoped it would. His voice trembled when he spoke.

Yet none the less Keiichi moved to follow his own advice, spending a good long while in the bathroom relieving a bladder that had taken that moment to burn with a need that hurt. The man had been reluctant to turn off the bathroom light after that, looking into the hallway that led to the kitchen and seeing monsters with sharp teeth and sharper claws and red glowing cat eyes.

"You know what? Fuck it."

He drank his water from the bathroom faucet.

The water tasted stale and metallic, but it woke the dark-haired man further, and as he turned off the water Keiichi felt more like his old self. "Four thirty in the morning." He muttered to himself, wiping off the remaining water on his chin with a hand towel. "And on a _Sunday_ too. There's no justice in the world, I swear." The man was fully awake now, and he knew already that there was little to no chance of him getting any more rest that morning.

_You should check on her._ A voice whispered in the back of his mind, and had it been an actual person Keiichi would have turned around and smacked it. "I don't _need_ to check on her. It was a damned dream. It's not like it was real or anything." Yet the voice was insistent, and irritatingly rational, leaving Keiichi to wonder if it was the voice of reason that spoke to him or that little piece of his mind that had started to grow since meeting Belldandy, leaving him to seriously question his own sanity. _Ah, but Gods are real_. It whispered. _So who's to say monsters aren't? Who's to say demons aren't? Belldandy has opened up a great big door for you Keiichi, and there's a whole 'nother world filled with nothing but those very things you always claimed never existed._

Keiichi narrowed his eyes in annoyance at the revelation, grumbling to himself as he strode out into the hallway. _I fucking hate you._ He thought to the voice.

He wasn't sure whether to snort in amusement or scowl angrily when the voice laughed and disappeared.

The man was outside Belldandy's door now, and slowly he rapped a knuckle on the outside frame. "Belldandy? Are you awake? I need to-" _make sure your alive _"-talk to you for a sec."

Nothing but silence was his response, and Keiichi grimaced. "Shit." The hand that knocked fell to the slide in the door, sinking into the little dip and readying to pull it open. _Either one of two things is going to happen._ He thought grimly to himself. _Either I'm going to walk into a woman's quarters uninvited and get slapped or I'm going to open Belldandy's room and find a goddamned chainsaw massacre._ Neither option seemed like much fun in his mind, and even while another little voice was telling him to turn around and walk away Keiichi was sliding open the door to Belldandy's room.

What he found inside was neither an angry woman ready to redden his cheek nor the bloody remains of a homicide, but rather Belldandy, resting peacefully in her futon with blankets piled high. The man released a breath he'd not known he held, and hesitantly he knocked on the inside wall in a vain effort to try and wake the goddess once more. No response, and Keiichi felt his heart thrum uneasily in his chest once more.

What if she was really dead? What if she'd suffocated in her sleep, strangled by her blankets? Maybe there was some internal wound he could not see beneath the blankets, or perhaps some terrifying monster had burst from her chest, left to run amok in the shrine.

From somewhere behind him Keiichi thought he heard the sound of a woman's laughter, and he wheeled around to find nothing but shadows and darkness. "Ignore it Keiichi, you're hearing things. There's nothing out there. You and Belldandy are the only ones here." He whispered, the hair on the back of his neck standing on edge as he tried in a vain to reassure himself.

Something large brushed against his back and the hot breath of a beast tickled his flesh.

And with a scream Keiichi ran into Belldandy's room, tripping over the woman's futon and falling on top the resting goddess.

_That_ seemed to wake the woman from her sleep, and as Keiichi's body pressed against hers, Belldandy's eyes shot open, finding a shadowy figure screaming on top of her and responding in turn with a shriek of her own. The brunette squirmed and wriggled, fighting to free herself from the covers that bound her and escape from under the yowling man that she was only dimly aware was Keiichi. Finally, after enough struggling, the woman freed a foot from beneath her covers of her futon, and Keiichi Morisato learned two things that morning.

First was that Belldandy kicked _hard_.

Second was that the goddess, for all the purity she seemed so content to preach to the world on a daily basis, fought as dirty as a street fighter trapped and cornered in an alleyway.

A squeal-grunt somehow squeezed its way from Keiichi's throat as the man wheezed, and with an enraged snarl, Belldandy shoved the man off to one side. The mechanic collapsed on his side in a whimper, and Belldandy scrambled to her feet, panting harshly as she fought to catch her breath.

"You...you..." The woman's voice trembled as she glared down at the man, words failing her as she seethed. "...Why...what were you...Have you gone insane? What's _wrong_ with you? Barging into a woman's room screaming and hollering like a madman, and then...and _then_..."

She was shaking as her mind flashed back to that first instance of awakening; a voice screaming in her ear, a large weight on top her body, dark eyes leering down at her from a dark face...

The goddess shivered, swallowing uncomfortably as unbidden memories rose with it, and quickly Belldandy vanished them from her mind. The brunette glared down at Keiichi, whose moan had ceased and left the man in a panting silence. "And here I thought you were _better_ than that." She hissed.

A single dark eye from Keiichi looked up at the woman with a grimace, and the mechanic mouthed words she could not hear. A small part of her wondered if he was trying to explain himself, and as the man gaped like a fish out of water Belldandy approached him, expression wary and distrustful. Keiichi rolled to his knees, one hand wrapped securely around his stomach, and when again he tried to speak and his voice still refused to work, the student instead motioned Belldandy towards him.

Cautiously, Belldandy stooped near Keiichi, wondering what explanation he was trying so hard to vocalize, and finally, in a whisper-sigh, Keiichi spoke one word that said it all.

"Bitch."

And very calmly, very slowly, Belldandy moved away from Keiichi, rising to tower over his hunched form. Just as calmly, just as slowly, a hand rose in the air. A resounding _smack_ echoed throughout the temple and into the surrounding trees, causing birds to take flight and squirrels to run to their dens.

And then, at a crawl even slower than the calm storm that was the goddess whose room he'd decided to invade, Keiichi slunk out. His cheek was blooming into a bright red that stung and throbbed and his stomach felt cramped and left him with a feeling of wanting to vomit. The door slid shut behind him with a hard slam, and Keiichi paused in the hallway to turn and flip the wood off. "Fucking...bitch..." He wheezed, before turning and storming as best a kicked man could storm, down the hallway and to the living room area.

He was too angry to give a damn about the shadowy beasts that watched him go. In fact, when his gaze fell onto one of the creatures that he was certain was still a hallucination from some morbid nightmare, he flipped it off too, warned it not to fuck with him because he was not in the mood, and then proceeded to storm right through it. The thing vanished like so many other monsters from his childhood, and Keiichi ventured onwards.

There were no more monsters after that.

"God damn it. God _damn _it!" He snarled as the pain eased. "I'm trying to make sure she's fucking alive, that she's fucking safe, and she nails me in the goddamned stomach! What. The. Fuck!"

A small voice in the back of his mind told him Belldandy's response was reasonable, that he'd scared her when he fell on top of the woman in her sleep, and Keiichi promptly told the voice to go fuck itself. The man grabbed his jacket from where it rested on a hanger before moving to the front of the house. He continued muttering to himself as he put his shoes on, and the door slammed loudly in his wake as Keiichi stormed outside.

His breath came out in a white mist in the morning air, and the chill hit his hands and face, biting uncomfortably as Keiichi zipped up his jacket. Above his head, the sky was only just starting to lighten with the dawning sun, and again Keiichi found himself muttering obscurities to the morning air. He passed his bike, pausing only for a brief moment to stare at it in contemplation before the voice of common sense told him to keep walking, reminding the man that he was angry and the morning was still dark, and to ride with such a combination was liable to get him killed.

"Fucking hell." He cursed, this time to the morning sky.

The sky responded with a happy twitter of birds.

Sighing wistfully and wishing he had a BB gun on him, Keiichi made his way down the to the road at the foot of the shrine, deciding that he needed to walk and that he needed to smoke to allow the anger to fade and his head to clear.

That and maybe punch something. He was in a very punchy kind of mood.

The man withdrew a carton of cigarettes from one of the pockets in his jacket and popped the top open with a stressed sigh.

The carton was empty.

Keiichi stared long and hard at the empty box, wondering if it was going to be another 'fuck with Keiichi' kind of day and decided it probably would be. He crushed the box in his hand and threw it as far as he could, watching as the trashed container flew over the railing and down the cliff. Scowling, he shoved his hands in his pockets once more and started to walk again. "It _would_ be on a day like this, wouldn't it?"

And to his surprise, someone responded. "Bad day, _da_?"

The voice was rough and deep and scared the shit out him, and Keiichi twirled to face the stranger like a figure skater on ice.

A man was there.

Keiichi was pretty sure he hadn't been 'there' before.

The man was tall. Taller then Keiichi, which wasn't saying much, but not as tall as Tamiya. He was probably around Urd's height, and like Urd, the stranger was about as Japanese as Keiichi was Norwegian. His skin was pale and his hair a bright and curly blonde. The stranger was dressed in a black trench coat that showed dark stains and a baggy black shirt, with cargo pants that looked to have seen better days and combat boots whose leather looked old and frayed.

Two thoughts entered Keiichi's head as he examined the stranger. The first was _gaijin_. The second was _hobo._ Neither really struck his fancy as someone he wanted to converse with, and so with a grunt Keiichi turned and started walking once more.

A hand grabbed his shoulder. "What is in rush?" His accent was thick and heavy. "Look you like has the problems of woman." The voice was cheery and annoying, and a dark scowl fell upon Keiichi's face.

_I won't hit a woman._ He thought to himself. _She can beat me, curse me, whatever the fuck she wants, but I will not lay a finger on her._ Brown eyes darted to the hand on his shoulder, small and delicate, without so much as a speck of dirt beneath the nails. _But so help me, I _will _punch a hobo. _

Keiichi grabbed the hand by the wrist, turning and bringing his other up in a fist at the stranger's face and...

The man had a cigarette in his mouth.

In his other hand was a fresh carton of the sticks, the plastic still covering a majority of the paper and covered with foreign characters Keiichi dimly recognized as German. Smiling in-between his cancer stick, the hobo offered the pack to him, and Keiichi felt the fight die in his body.

Gingerly, he pulled out a cigarette of his own, releasing the foreigner from his grasp. "...Thanks." He muttered, putting the cigarette to his lips and digging around in his pocket for the set of matches he kept on him. There was a snap, and Keiichi looked up to see a lighter, its flame a bright yellow, once more held out in offering. Giving up on his matches the student leaned over and lit the cigarette. This close, the man got a good view of the lighter, and as the smell of tobacco and something sweet filled the air, Keiichi jumped back with a start.

The blonde laughed raucously at his behavior and Keiichi almost dropped the cigarette from his mouth. "You like?" He asked, snapping the lighter shut with a flick of his wrist. "Is good trick. Sleight hand."

And as the shock faded, so too did Keiichi allow himself a chuckle. It was nervous and fake, yet the man across from him didn't seem to notice. "Sleight of hand...Yeah...Cool trick." Sleight of hand his _ass. _The man's fucking _hand_ had been on fire.

"You want I show? Is _much_ popular with ladies." The foreigner wagged his eyebrows suggestively to Keiichi, and this time when the student laughed it was honest.

"Nah, you can keep your tricks, Magic Man. I have enough problems in my life already with women. I don't need something else they can harp on my ass for." The youth took a long drag on his cigarette and smirked as the stranger laughed again.

"So is right!" The blonde proclaimed. "Troubles with the womans!" And with a resigned sigh Keiichi nodded. The foreigner nodded knowingly and slapped Keiichi on the back. "Come." He said as the youth sent him a dirty look. "Walk with me and we's talk of womans and ill wills."

Despite his initial dislike for the man upon five minutes ago, Keiichi allowed himself to be guided down the dark road. The cigarette tasted of tobacco and something sweet he didn't recognize, and as a feeling of fuzziness fluttered in his skull Keiichi wondered just _what_ that sweet stuff was. A part of him was willing to bet it was illegal, but a larger portion of his mind was enjoying the feeling too much to care.

So what if he was catching glimpses of shadows that weren't shadows out of the corner of his eye? So what if he thought he saw a camcorder with shiny, fleshy legs standing on a pole, watching them with its huge camera lens? None of it was real-just the last dying phantoms of a bad dream, and Keiichi gave the odd electronic-with-legs a two-fingered salute before watching it hop away towards the shrine.

Snorting in amusement at the illusion's actions, the man took a long drag of his cigarette before glancing to his comrade. "What brand is this? These are pretty good."

"Take another for later." Blondie offered the box to Keiichi and the man grabbed a fresh stick and stuck it behind his ear. The foreigner then grinned his crazy grin before sprouting out a title that held a good many syllables with an accent so thick Keiichi couldn't make hide nor hair of the words. It certainly didn't sound German. The youth raised an eyebrow. "And in Japanese that translates to..."

He trailed off and Blondie shrugged, his grin never once showing signs of fading. "No translation." He said. "Is too good for that. Hard to fine. Is pricey, found only in one place."

"And that place is...?"

This time Blondie didn't respond, simply smiled and shrugged and laughed, and his smile infectious, Keiichi grinned too. "You're a strange one, buddy."

"_Da_." Blondie nodded in agreement, and Keiichi wondered just how much of what he'd said the man understood. "The problems of the womans now..." He trailed off and Keiichi found himself all too happy to pick up the piece.

The man took another long drag of his cigarette before releasing the smoke in a sigh. "I don't understand her." He muttered, his expression darkening for a brief moment. "I try and check to make sure she's okay, and she nails me for it. It doesn't make any sense."

"_Da?_"

"Yeah. And just when I start to think that things might be improving between us, like we're making some sort of progress in this fucking crazy-ass relationship we're stuck in, some stupid shit like this will happen and we're back at square one, at each other's throats like a couple of fucking wolves." The words came easily now that he vocalized them, and the old anger from before rose in his chest like a raging fire.

"It's just so fucking _stupid!_" He snapped, a fist clenching in rage. "Neither one of us want to be in this situation, but for whatever reason we're stuck together and nothing we do is going to end that fact! And no matter how much we smile and nod and play nice, we can still only barely tolerate each other."

Blondie actually seemed surprised by his confession, and at his expression Keiichi barked a noise that might have been a laugh, but just as easily could have been mistaken for a growl. "Yeah, hate to burst your bubble pal, but the two of us aren't like that. We never were and we never will be. I'd sooner date a ghost." He spat on the ground in emphasis. "The very _idea_ of us being together is just..."

The man shuddered, igniting a laugh from his companion, who patted him on the back sympathetically. "That's a damned shame, Boy." The accent had faded somewhat, and Keiichi stared blinking at his comrade. "And here I thought I could use you against that wench."

"What?" Something about the words seemed _wrong_ somehow, and he stared long and hard at the _gaijin, _and Blondie looked back with a large, toothy grin. The grin held long fangs and red eyes, very, _very_ familiar red eyes, stared into brown.

"Oh..._shit..._"

"Looks like I'll have to find another use for you than simply as a weak point for Verthandi." The voice was rough and husky, and Keiichi wondered how he could have ever mistaken the woman in the fresh fatigues and new trench coat for a man. She didn't even look like a hobo when he took the time to think about it.

She sighed before removing her arm from his shoulders. "Oh well." The blonde snapped her fingers, and Keiichi heard a sharp ring pierce his mind, one that resounded in a white flash of pain, and Keiichi screamed as he fell to his knees. His hands went to his head and the cigarette fell from his mouth, and the woman stared down at him. She moved closer, crushing the fallen cigarette beneath a shiny black boot and dropping to one knee. A hand, the nails long and pointed and sharp, reached under Keiichi's chin and lifted it up, forcing the man to meet the woman's gaze.

Red markings reminiscent to the blue of Belldandy's, to those of Urd's, marred the blonde's face, and Keiichi felt himself break into a cold sweat. "I suppose I can still find a use for you though." She said, and as Keiichi looked into slit red eyes, he fought to ignore what his mind was telling him. Because his mind saw more than his eyes, and if he listened to what his mind was telling him was in front of him, Keiichi was certain he'd go mad.

"Well then, shall we begin?"

She leaned in and kissed him, and Keiichi knew no more.

* * *

Belldandy had returned to her bed after seeing Keiichi out of her room, his presence a negative vibe that she could follow too easily and watching in her mind's eye as he departed the house for the world beyond. Content to know she'd not have to deal with the heathen for at least a couple more hours, the goddess returned to her blankets with a sigh, closing her eyes and waiting for sleep to sweep her away once more.

It didn't.

She waited. Waited for a yawn to escape her lips or her eyes to flutter, yet neither of the sort came.

Instead Keiichi's face, enraged, pained, and terrified, flashed across her mind's eyes. The goddess grunted in irritation and rolled over, banishing the image from her mind and seeking out the dream-world she'd once been a part of only to fail miserably. Rather, Keiichi's face returned to her, and with a groan Belldandy tossed and turned, hoping to rid herself of the image and silently cursing the man for his presence in her mind.

It was guilt, she knew, that kept her from sleep, and after several minutes of no progress, with a frustrated growl Belldandy finally surrendered to her subconscious, rising with an aggravated mutter and making her way to the door.

_So perhaps I was a little harsh with him when he entered my room._ The brunette thought as she entered the hallway. _But he'd scared me. He was not behaving as was the norm..._The goddess paused in her thoughts. It was true. Keiichi _hadn't_ been acting as was normal for him. In fact, if she thought back to it...

He'd been screaming. Something had scared him, for whatever other reason would he scream? The goddess frowned at the revelation, and the guilt that had swelled at the pit of her stomach grew uncomfortably. "I should apologize to him." She said to the darkness. "Surely there was a reason behind his fear."

Purposely she strode down the hall, dressed in little 'sides a nightgown she'd bought with Megumi on a shopping trip. The air was still and the house was silent so early in the morning, and Belldandy was reminded of the fact that Urd had left earlier in the week due to her business. Something had happened to one of her employees, Belldandy recalled, something that had left the elder sibling departing very quickly and with little warning. The darker woman had left an envelope with a thousand yen bill inside for any emergency funds and a phone number in case they needed to get in contact with the goddess, but otherwise had vanished without a trace.

Belldandy hoped whatever had happened, it wasn't _too_ bad.

Something ran across her bare foot and with a start Belldandy looked down, catching sight of something small and dark scampering away from her. "A rat?" Belldandy murmured, brows furrowing together in confusion as she stared at the dark silhouette. "Since when did we have rats?" She could remember the mouse infestation from when she and Keiichi had first started fixing the shrine up. Around the same time she could remember hearing from someone, possibly Megumi or one of the students at the college, mentioning something of rats and mice never inhabiting the same territory. At the time, she'd figured the bit of information must have had some truth to it, for she'd never seen hide nor hair of the larger rodents so long as their mouse problem was present. Now though, with the sight of a rather large, raggedly rat hiding in the shadows of the morning, Belldandy began to wonder at the validity of that fact.

The creature turned to look up at her with beady red eyes, and Belldandy kneeled to better examine the creature. A corner of her lips tugged downward as she brought a hand out in front of her, offering it to the rodent. "Come here please." She ordered, using her Command Voice to ensure the creature's obedience. It had worked rather well on the residential mouse population to convince a majority of the little beasts to leave the shrine's territory and save Keiichi and the rodents the pain of mouse traps and rat poison, (something Keiichi had never learned of-he'd thought he'd gotten rid of them with a can of rodent repellent) yet while her Voice had worked on the mice, it did not work on the rat.

The rat stood still, continuing to stare at her with angry red eyes, and Belldandy frowned as a feeling of _wrongness _rose in her belly. "What is wrong?" She asked it. "Come _here_. I cannot have you in the shrine. Keiichi may try to go on a murderous rat rampage should he see you in our home. And I've no wish to see you dead any more than you wish to be killed, I'm certain." This time she beckoned to the rat as well, increasing the pressure on its mind minutely to encourage its obedience.

Not so much as a twitch.

Belldandy scowled, near-cursing the small rodent in her head while vocalizing, "Now what is this nonsense? For what reason do you disobey me?" Surely as a third-dimensional creature, the rat would obey her. She could think of no other reason why it would not, unless perhaps it was being directed under an entity that was higher-ranking than herself.

_You are not our master._

The words came from the rat, not so much in the typical images, scents, and sounds that were so often used when communicating with a lesser-intelligence species, but with a full and complete sentence that only a creature of a rather high intelligence, such as a human, was capable of creating.

For a brief and comical two seconds, Belldandy gaped at the rat like a fish out of water, opening and closing her mouth as she sought out a proper response to the rat-that-was-not before finally finding her voice once more. "What is that supposed to mean?" Surely, she'd come across sentient rodents before-even _rats_ had gods-but not in her times on the Assiah realm, and certainly not from one of the _locals_.

_It means we do not listen to your words, Deity._ This voice was different; used in the same sense of the rat before her, yet coming from above her head rather than in front of her. Belldandy looked up, and from the rafters hundreds of beady red eyes glared back. There were too many to count, the rats, sitting on wooden beams and peaking down from holes in the ceiling that did not exist the day prior.

A raging, hateful audience, they watched Belldandy in silence, their mad red eyes almost seeming to glow in the darkness. Only one moved, leaping-or was it falling?-from the rafters and landing on the wooden floor with a squishy _plop_. The goddess watched it warily as it rose easily to its feet, shaking itself before regarding the brunette with one red eye. The other held a yellow-white film over it that shown sickly in the darkness, and as the voice from above it addressed her.

_We listen to none but our master. _It said with a hiss. _There is no reason to listen to one weaker than her._

The woman's gaze heavily focused on the one-eyed rat before her and its brethren above it, Belldandy never noticed the rat that had first gained her attention approach from behind. It crept up silently to the kneeling woman, and with a screech it sank its teeth into the woman's heel. The goddess shrieked in pain, leaping to her feet and lashing the assaulted limb out and against a wall. Both heel and rat struck the wood with a heavy _thud, _and the rat squealed before releasing its grip on Belldandy's flesh.

Its body crumpled to the floor, and as if it were some sort of signal the others followed, engulfing Belldandy in a wave of rat-flesh; a living wall of screeching, scratching, biting fur and teeth. They fell in her hair, covered her arms and fell into her nightgown, wriggling and squirming, biting and scratching at her bare flesh and screeching in her ears, and Belldandy screamed with them. The woman grabbed a handful of rats and threw them down the hall. More replaced them, and in the darkness of the hallway Belldandy could see those she'd thrown racing back towards her, doubled in size to that of a pack of small dogs, their claws growing long and sharp like talons and their gnawing teeth elongated and jagged like broken glass.

They leaped at her as one body, the large rats colliding with Belldandy and knocking her to the ground. The goddess hit the floor with a cry, and the rats swarmed on top of her. The woman twisted and squirmed beneath the creatures. One foot lashed out and kicked a rat into a wall, while a hand clawed at the eyes of one snapping its glass-teeth in front of her face.

There were too many of them. Too much noise, too many bodies, too much pain as they swarmed. She couldn't think, and it scared her, for if she couldn't think she couldn't concentrate, and if she couldn't concentrate then she couldn't call upon her magic.

_Calm down. _A voice that was not her own whispered in her mind. _You're alright. You're okay Look, they aren't even hurting you-not really. _Holy Bell's voice was a calm light that eased the panic bubbling in Belldandy's throat, and the goddess listened to her angel's words, looking to her body and noting for the first time that for all the bites and scratches, Belldandy did not bleed.

_The rats are weak, Belldandy. _Holy Bell continued. _For all their numbers, they are still rodents, and you are still a god. _On the fringes of her mind, Belldandy saw a pale hand reach out to her. _Now come, lets rid the shrine of these pests._ And in her mind the woman reached for the hand and grabbed it.

A wave of calm swept through her like a warm breeze, causing the fear and panic to vanished. In their place magic flowed, magic that Belldandy called to and that responded like an old friend.

With a shout and a sweep of the hand, a wave of magic-induced wind slammed into a portion of the rats, sending the creatures flying off the goddess's body in a chorus of screeches. Some hit the walls, others the ceiling while more still flew far off into the darkness of the shrine hallway. Another slash, followed by more screeches, and Belldandy found enough of the creatures off her body that she could pick herself up from the ground once more.

She stood, and as she did the woman felt the warmth of another from her back, and together Belldandy and Holy Bell fought, throwing wave after magic wave across the goddess's body until not a single rat remained on her person.

Here she watched the rats retreat, screeching and swarming across each other like a black, living stream into the darkness of the shrine once more. Goddess and angel watched them depart, Belldandy taking a moment to gather her breath and feeling Holy Bell sink into her back with a relieved sigh. _Thank-you._ She thought silently, heart still ramming in her ears, and now she could feel her body trembling from the unprovoked attack.

Her nightgown was in tatters yet the flesh beneath was unmarred, and the goddess took long and steady breaths in the hopes of calming her nerves. "Change." She spoke aloud, hearing a voice that quivered nervously. "I need to change." Yes...That was a good idea. Change into a fresh set of clothes not lined with holes. Go out and make certain Keiichi was okay. Then return and maybe set out some mouse traps and rat poison.

"Yes...I think maybe Keiichi would like that. We'll make it the project for the shrine today-rid the house of the new rat infestation." The goddess laughed, but the sound was dry and fake in her ears, so she stopped.

The woman turned around to venture back to her room only to pause, once more finding herself under the scrutiny of the one-eyed rat from before. It shivered and twitched before her, and the Norn took a step back, sensing something abnormal swirling around the small creature. Itts body suddenly spasmed violently, sending the beast into a writhing shriek in front of her. Bones popped and snapped, springing from the furry hide of the rat like great white spears as muscle twitched and rippled underneath.

It was growing, mutating, into what Belldandy had no idea other than the fact that it was bad. Fur bristled and hardened into black and jagged spires. A hard shell enveloped the area where its eyes once were, and it faced her with an elongated maw, the jaw parting and revealing curved teeth the size of knives.

"Oh...fu-_dear_..." Belldandy near-cursed, and the creature that had once been a rat bellowed at her. It reared up on its hind legs, its monstrous black head scraping the ceiling as it swiped at her with a large, taloned hand. Belldandy stumbled back, the claws slashing through the air where her head had been a second ago. The beast snarled and lunged at the goddess, and the brunette let out a shriek as what must have been over two-hundred pounds of monster-flesh descended upon her smaller form.

A sharp clang rang through the air, followed by a noise that couldn't decide if it was a whimper or a scream as Belldandy held the staff above her head. Arms trembling with exertion, Belldandy thrust the golden object further against the monster, and the rings connected to the hoop at the end jingled happily.

_Thank-you Almighty. Thank-you thank-you THANK-YOU!_ There had been times in the past, when the Goddess Hotline had still been new, where unarmed deities had been attacked by demons or some malevolent spirit once descended, and after a rather nasty incident where a goddess had almost been crippled, the Almighty had made a rule stating it mandatory for all deities working the hotline to be armed before a descent.

Initially, Belldandy had been quite dissatisfied with the idea; a goddess with little love for weapons in general, the idea of carrying one near her at the office, _on _ her should she descend, had left a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach. The Nornd believed she'd never need to use such an object, especially as, with the passing of time, the attacks came less and less often to the point where it was rare for any entity to be attacked no matter the dimension.

Yet now, with the jaws of a monstrous beast snapping inches from her face and held back by little 'sides a golden staff shoved into its chest, Belldandy found herself counting her blessings. It wasn't much of a weapon, true, having chosen what looked to have been the least threatening in the inventory, but it met her needs, and now Belldandy slowly forced the monster back, even as it shrieked and pushed against the staff in defiance.

Belldandy found herself capable of little speech aside from a grunt as she struggled against it, her arms buckling threateningly even as her mind raced to find a way out of the stalemate. _Magic amplifier, magic amplifier, how did those Valkyries say it worked again?_ Her heart was thrumming heavily in her ears and she could feel her arms bend as slowly, the beast gained the advantage.

_No time to panic Love, ignore the monster and think. You know how to use it-Sigrun said it was like riding a bike-do it once and you'll never forget. _Holy Bell whispered, and Belldandy sent a mental glare to the angel.

_That's not helping! _

There was a brief moment of silence from her other-half, and Belldandy feared the angel had decided to abandon the goddess in her panic. ..._Have you tried just casting a spell?_

The brunette's mouth formed in an 'oh' of realization, and where once a rat-monster-thing had been ready to gnaw on her head like a piece of cheese, now a large and gaping hole in the roof remained, with bits and pieces of broken wood and plaster falling to the ground in front of the goddess.

As the last bit of her magic faded from the staff, Belldandy lowered the weapon in front of her, staring at it fondly. "You know, at first I didn't really like you." She told it, a giggle that sounded hysteric rising from her throat. "Now I think I've changed my mind. It's rather nice having you around." She rubbed her cheek against the cool metal affectionately before turning her gaze to the new sun roof she'd just made. The woman's expression darkened. "And just when we'd finally moved out of the trailer too." She said mournfully. "Keiichi isn't going to like this..."

From behind her, the chatter and screech of hundreds of rats met her ears, and once more Belldandy turned, making out dark silhouettes and sparkling red eyes against the dim light that now filled the hallway. She saw several move towards her, and heard a recognizable _snap, crackle, pop_ as those dark shapes began to grow.

Several near-curses rose from Belldandy's throat once more, and the goddess found herself backing away from the encroaching creatures. _Please no. Not here, not in the shrine, not after we've nearly restored it..._The goddess was in the light of the morning day now, and as the first weak rays of light draped across her body the woman looked up, pausing only long enough to glance from the hole and to the monsters, larger now to the point of walking in pairs, shoulders scraping each other and either side of the hallway as they approached and only seeming to grow larger by the second.

And then the goddess was gone, bounding out of the building through the hole in the roof and to the world beyond. The woman landed in the stone courtyard beyond, and she glanced warily behind her, maneuvering her staff to face the hole in the roof, the first words of a spell on her tongue as she waited for that first black head to pop out.

Yet nothing of the sort happened, and after five minutes of tense anticipation Belldandy cautiously lowered the staff to her side with a sigh. "They aren't going to leave the shrine, are they?" She asked no one in particular, and likewise, no one responded, leaving the goddess to shake her head in disapproval. "Mouse traps." She decided, turning and taking a step to the stairs of the shrine. "Lots and lots of mouse traps." The goddess stumbled, she was trembling so bad, and quickly Belldandy used her staff to catch herself before she fell.

For a long moment the brunette remained motionless, both hands gripping tight the staff in front of her as she took big gulps of air. "Almighty Bless it!" She cried, sliding to her knees and covering her face with one hand. "That...that was too much!" the woman's voice rose and cracked in her agitation, yet Belldandy couldn't bring herself to care. "What were...what are those...those _things_ doing in the shrine?"

_It doesn't matter._ A flash of a memory, one that now felt like it happened a lifetime ago, slid across her vision. Keiichi's cries, the fear in his eyes, filled her mind's eye for long moment. "He saw them..." Belldandy whispered, and as the vision parted a feeling of resolve filled her being. _Now's not the time to fall apart. Come. You've been through worse. Save the breakdown until after you know Keiichi is safe._

With a grunt the goddess carefully picked herself back up, ragged nightgown and all. Leaning against her staff for support, she looked over her shoulder and back at the shrine. From the darker crevices of the shrine and resting in the shadows where no light shone through, Belldandy saw them; the creatures disguised as rats, some small and rat-like with their beady mad eyes, others large and lumbering black giants, little more than giant gaping mouths smiling hungrily at her.

"Been through worse, you say?" She murmured. "I wonder at that..."

_They aren't coming after you. It looks like they're restricted to the shadows. _

"I'll need to come up with a way to get rid of those creatures before nightfall then."

Laughter, rough and feminine, erupted from above her head. "Good luck with that, Girlie." Belldandy turned to the owner of the source, meeting the inquisitive red gaze of the woman whom it belonged to. She sat on the red _tori _that stood above the steps leading down to the road below, and when Belldandy's eyes met her own she smiled, revealing elongated canines. "You haven't been paying attention to the weather forecast, have you?" The stranger pointed to the sky above, and Belldandy followed the finger up, seeing a red-tinged sunrise sky with thick,billowing clouds painted orange in the morning light. "You've got a heavy chance of rain today, Verthandi...or is it _Belldandy_ now?"

"Marller..." The name came out a whisper, and suddenly the goddess was cold.

It had nothing to do with her outfit.

"_You..._What are _you _doing here?" The woman's gaze darted over her shoulder to the beasts in the shades and shadows, than back to Marller. "What do you want from me?"

The blonde chuckled, lightly kicking the air with a fatigue-dressed leg that dangled from the _tori_. "Ah...that was one thing I always liked about you, _Belldandy_. You may not be the brightest bulb in the pack, but you catch on quick." The intruder snapped her fingers, the sound loud enough that Belldandy could easily hear it despite the distance separating the two. With it came a hush, and suddenly Keiichi appeared in front of the goddess, falling to the ground without so much as a grunt.

"Keiichi!" Eyes wide with alarm the goddess rushed to the fallen mortal, kneeling beside the man and resting a hand on his shoulder. Keiichi flinched away at her touch, and a low, pained groan escaped his throat. Immediately the woman removed her hands from the man, and she sent a withering glare to the one regarding them from the _tori_. "What have you done to him?" She demanded. "What did you do to Keiichi?"

The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Oh just a little this and a little that." She replied lightly. "Really, your man's fine...at least for the moment."

"Marller..." There was a warning tone in Belldandy's voice, and the blonde chuckled.

"Don't you talk to your higher-ups like that, _Belldandy._" The fanged woman wagged a finger at the goddess in disapproval. "Don't you have any respect for higher authorities?"

"Not when they're demons like _you, _Marller."

Another bought of laughter escaped the demon's throat. "Ah, _touche _little goddess. I suppose I'll have to let it pass then."

Belldandy clenched her fists, biting her lower lip as she fought back a scream. "Stop toying with me Marller." She hissed. "What did you do to Keiichi and what are you after that will undo it?"

The demon sighed loudly. "Aww...you're no fun." She pouted. "But then, you never had your sister's sense of humor, did you?" Something that might have almost passed for a growl rose in Belldandy's throat. The demon grinned at the goddess's frustration. "If you want to know what I did to him, all you have to do is look behind you."

Belldandy paled at the demon's words, and slowly she looked behind her. One of the many beasts that had attacked her snapped its large jaws at her, and what sounded eerily similar to human laughter escaped the throat of another. "Now, I can't say much about my little pets over there other than the fact that the metamorphosis from human to _Rakshasa_ is...painful, to say the least..." The demon continued, even as Belldandy turned her gaze to the pained form of the man before her. "...however it _is _preventable...for a price."

The goddess grit her teeth. "And what would that price be, Marller?"

The smile faded from the demon's face and the laughter died from her cat red-eyes. "I want your access code." The amusement had died, replaced with a certain characteristic reminiscent of a cat. One that had grown bored playing with its food and was moving in for the kill. "And I want _Yggdrasil's _access code, Verthandi. Not the access code to your room. Not the access code to your locker. _Yggdrasil'__s."_

Belldandy swallowed. Her mouth felt dry and her heart was in her ears. "I can't do that, Marller." She said, feeling her heartbeat quicken as the demon above her narrowed her eyes. "That's one thing I can't-I _won't _let you bully me into, even with what you did to Keiichi."

Marller's eyes flashed dangerously and Belldandy tensed, certain the demon was going to attack. And then the anger vanished, and the blonde leaned back with a smile. "Alright." She said with a shrug. "Fine. Have it your way. I'll let you and your little boy toy think it over for a while." The woman crawled onto her feet, standing atop the _tori_ and crossing her arms over her chest. "Just remember _Belldandy_. I'll not be leaving this realm until I get what I want."

With that the woman leaped off her platform, back flipping and vanishing into the air, leaving Belldandy alone with a fallen mortal and the large pack of evil spirits watching her from the shadows. The goddess looked around, watching as one of the large lumbering beasts took a step out of the shadow of the shrine. When nothing happened and the _Rakshasa_ dared another step, Belldandys' eyes drifted to the heavens, where the sun, free from it's climb across the mountains, found itself instead obscured by clouds.

"Oh no." Light blue eyes darted back to the monster. It was approaching her slowly, and behind it more of the beast's brethren joined it; and army of hard black flesh and glistening white fangs creeping towards Belldandy and Keiichi. "No no no _no."_

The leader broke into a run.

The others followed.

And as a stampede of evil spirits charged a goddess close to hysteria and a mortal in the process of becoming a _Rakshasa_, Belldandy wrapped her arms around Keiichi and closed her eyes.


	2. Vidi

_Part two of three_

_Comments of a Madwoman: Urd calls Belldandy 'Dee'. Peorth does not get along with Belldandy do to a past incident and is also Belldandy's acting superior on the Goddess Hotline._

* * *

Urd idly tapped a finger against the armrest, a soft _tap tap tap_ the went unheard to the beat of the song that filled the van.

"_In Siberia You Saw the Black Monk Preach_

_Russian Gnostic Words of Hidden Wisdom"_

The woman sat in the passenger seat. One of her men stationed in the little city they drove through was in control of the wheel, and in the several seats behind them sat even more. The silver-haired woman stared distractedly out the window, a small frown marring her features as she looked through the glass and to the stone and brick buildings beyond. Bits of the countryside and farmlands peeked out between the many buildings, creating an old-world feel to the foreign land.

Yet Urd saw none of it.

"_See the Mystery in the Ecstatic Eyes_

_Hear a Song as Sinful as the Moon"_

The dark woman was tense. And like a disease her tension had spread, infecting the others in the vehicle and cutting all attempts at communication off. Only the radio sang on, ignorant of the unheard order for silence.

"_Feel the Ecstasy When He Inverts the World_

_Secret Gnostic Words of Hidden Wisdom"_

With a sigh the woman finally spoke, breaking the pledge for silence as she spoke over the radio. "Jasper, can you go over the profile again?"

From somewhere behind her a voice arose, and Urd listened with half and ear as the man once more went over the paper. "Name: Winola Färber. Gender: female. Age: 29, German national..." The man continued his speech, dutifully reading off each line of the woman's profile as Urd followed along. She'd read the profile multiple times since her arrival in Europe, before meeting with her colleagues and passing the duty off to Jasper. As he read it once more the goddess followed along in her mind, mouthing the same words of the European native and seeing in her mind's eye the very woman he spoke of.

"_Follow Rasputin in the Enchanted Dance_

_Hear a Song as Sinful as the Moon"_

In her mind's eye Urd saw a woman stare at her, one with thick curly blonde hair and tired brown eyes. Her mouth seemed frozen in a permanent frown, and her face was lined with stress lines that spoke of a hard life. _What happen to you? _Urd asked the image. _You'd only just started working for us. Why did this have to happen now? When your life was just starting to improve?_

It felt like a personal affront. Even if Urd had never met the woman in person, she'd long ago made a habit out of knowing the background of everyone who came to her looking for a job. With it came an inner knowing of who that person was and how they acted to the point where it felt like Urd had known the person since childhood. In retrospect it was one of her more redeeming qualities; Urd had a habit of choosing those who were looking for a second chance at life for her jobs, many of which who remained under her employment even now.

Which was why the incident with Winola Färber stung in more ways than Urd could count. Miss Färber had been a prime example of that aspect of Urd's personality. Bankruptcy, victim of identity theft, homeless-the list went on for a mile. Yet Urd's own investigations had shown a certain potential in the woman, who had been recommended at the time by a former employee. The ex-employee, someone Urd had also helped get back on her feet had long since moved on to a higher-paying job with a local fashion company. Yet while the woman, Lydia Truehart, had moved on to bigger and better companies, she'd left Urd's business on good terms, and habitually referred job seekers to any one of the numerous companies under Urd's reign.

"As of May 13, 2011, Winola Färber was found on the scene of a mass murder inside a church that looked to be practicing some sort of occult ritual. Miss Färber was the only one found alive on the scene and is the primary suspect for the mass murder of approximately one hundred and thirteen men and women. Miss Färber herself was injured and naked when law enforcements arrived on scene. She appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance at the time, and when law-enforcements attempted to arrest her, Miss Färber critically injured several of the officers with nothing but her hands and feet before officers finally succeeding in subduing her. One officer was quoted as saying, 'It was like she was possessed.'"

Urd felt herself scowl as she listened to the explanation, just as she'd scowled the many times before. That quote. Just something about that quote put her on edge.

And that damned radio wasn't helping in the slightest.

With an irritated growl Urd reached over and turned the radio off, and Jasper lowered his voice, no longer needing to speak over the music. "Miss Färber was taken into custody, where she was given a pair of clothes before being sent to St. Maria's Hospital for her wounds to be treated. During the ride to the hospital Miss Färber became hysterical and began speaking in tongues. What little police officers were able to make from her ravings were of 'monsters and demons', but could otherwise make no sense of her words."

"One of the doctors commented that it was a miracle she was alive, her injuries consisting of two puncture wounds, approximately nine centimeters long, that had somehow missed any vital organs. It is assessed that her body will make a full physical recovery, however reports show that her mind has been damaged by the trauma of the event."

"As law enforcements continue to investigate the scene of the crime for any evidence behind the murders, Miss Färber has been admitted into a mental institute until proper evidence can be gathered either for or against her during the upcoming trial."

There was a light shuffle of papers from behind Urd, and the goddess knew Jasper was sliding the documents back into their envelope. The goddess rubbed her forehead, feeling the first signs of a headache threatening on the horizon and furiously fighting against it's rise. "Possession..." Urd muttered to herself, so softly that no one in the vehicle could make out the word.

_I pray that isn't the case this time._ She thought to herself uncomfortably. _I hate possession. Steal the body and imprison the soul._ "But it has all the characteristics of a possession..." She spoke aloud. "And that's why we're heading to the crime scene first-to see just what it was that drove poor Winola insane."

Outside the little city grew less populated and more abandoned, an area that looked to have fallen into disrepair, where the local government couldn't be bothered to put forth the funding needed for renovations. Here the vehicle slowed, and Urd roused herself from her thoughts, her gaze focusing to the world outside her window for the first time since stepping foot in the van. Fewer people navigated the streets outside; what little signs of life the goddess saw stood watching the vehicle suspiciously, even more that she didn't see but could feel watching from the shadows of alleys and safety of windows.

"Not the most friendly place in town now, is it?" Apparently Jasper's report had inspired a small level of confidence in the others, and now Lutz spoke up, perhaps hoping to ease the tension. There was a soft grumble from the others in the vehicle, but otherwise no one responded, and the desire for conversation once more vanished into thin air.

It wasn't long before Urd saw the first of the yellow police tape. It covered the church the van approached entirely, wrapping around the brick and glass with no end in sight. Several police cruisers were parked outside it's entrance and Wiley, the van's driver, parked across from them. "Alright everyone, badge check and story time!" Urd announced, unbuckling the seat belt and shifting to look behind her seat and to the men behind her.

There was a quite shuffle and a couple of curses as the four behind her dug into their pockets and withdrew their badges, clipping them to collars or shirt pockets. Violet eyes fell upon one man in particular, and the goddess smiled, all signs of tension vanishing behind a mask of ease. "Sing me a tune, Kasper, what's our alibi?" She asked, withdrawing her own badge and the lanyard it was connected to and letting it fall around her neck. The badge showed a professional woman with silver hair and violet eyes, dressed in a suit and staring solemnly out at the world. Beside the picture was a block of writing stating a name, age, gender, and many other small bits of personal information against a tan background. An official-looking tinted seal shown dully in the light, and in a corner a series of numbers, whose meanings were anyone's guess displayed in black.

"Members of the CIB, Czech Investigation Bureau, coming to investigate the scene of the mass murder that happened at The Church of our Forefathers on the thirteenth of May." A man with pale skin replied, and Urd gave him the thumbs up.

"Music to my ears." Urd smiled. "Alright boy's, listen up and listen good. It's a safe bet that our friendly neighborhood officer and his good buddies in there," She cocked a thumb to the church. "Are probably on their last nerve here-they're probably more used to seeing a petty theft or the occasional murder-not something as extreme as what we're about to walk into. They're going to be tense and nervous, especially when a three-letter agency decides to drop by unannounced for some snooping of their own."

The goddess paused, taking a minute to adjust to the small rise in chaos from the men that surrounded her. They were excited, and she could almost taste the 'what if's' running through their minds. What if the disguises didn't work? What if they were caught? What if one of the officers drew a gun on them? What were the chances of a firefight? It was a soft current, one that gurgled and murmured like white-noise in the back of Urd's mind, and the woman blinked, fighting down the wave of her own giddiness that followed it. _And what _would_ happen if a shot was fired?_ The little demon in the back of her head whispered. _How many more would respond? Who would be injured, who would be killed?_ A shiver raced down her spine. _There's so much room for error...so much room for the chaos that could rise with it..._

Urd bit the inside of her cheek, reeling in that little part of her before it could grow too wild. _Something tells me that entering a murder scene where over a hundred people were killed will provide enough chaos to last a week. _She thought grimly. The little demon on her shoulder fell quiet at that, perhaps realizing it was in for a five meal course that made its own thoughts look like a run through a burger stand. "Now, you all know what I'll be doing. For that I want Kasper and Jasper at my side. The rest of you are to roam about and do whatever it is three-letter agency personnel do at a crime scene. Question the officers, look official and menacing, scrape some blood off the walls for all I care, just make sure they don't interrupt me until I give the go ahead."

More nods and murmurs of agreement, and Urd smiled; one that was large and genuine, spreading across her face and revealing ivory teeth. Her heart was pounding in anticipation. "Alright, let's do this."

It was as much a dismissal as anything they'd get from her, and Jasper moved to slide the van door open even as Urd turned away to hop out of the passenger seat. The air outside was cool and quiet, interrupted only by the sounds of doors snapping shut. As one the group made their way towards the church, the goddess taking the lead as she slipped into the role of the woman on her badge; one that should, if they all played their cards right, allow the entrance to the crime scene.

As they approached the dark woman heard another pair of doors slam shut, and from the corner of her eye she caught sight of two officers making their way towards her, expressions grim and tired. _Well here's a happy bunch._ The woman thought to herself. _They look like they want to be here about as much as they want _us_ around. _Urd leaned her head back, tilting her head at just enough of an angle to catch Lutz's gaze. She signaled him with a small gesture and the man broke off from her pack, moving to intercept the approaching officers with a large smile on his face.

_Good. That takes care of the small problem of actually getting inside the church. _Lutz was good with people. He had a certain charisma to him that immediately put others at ease. The kind of guy who was easy to chat with, could sympathize with damn-near anyone, and pull a lie out of his ass as fast and as easily as a politician.

_Better to have him explain us away than me. An easy-going guy like him can separate himself from his new police buddies under the 'guise of investigation. But men are always looking to have a pretty lady stay around for 'just a bit longer'._ One incident in particular surfaced in her memory; an arms deal involving a general from an unspecified country who'd been a little _too_ friendly during negotiations. On the plus side, the goddess been able to raise the price to an absurd amount of money-the man could have easily purchased the newer upgraded variant of the weapon system for the exact same price-with the downside being that he'd wanted to take her out to dinner.

Leaving his wife at home to watch the kids.

They entered the church, and as soon as Urd took her first step inside a wave of chaos swept through her. It rose like the screams of the dying in her ears, smelled of bitter fear and hate and tasted of flesh and metallic blood. The wave hit her fast and hard, giving the bronze woman little time to prepare herself. It hit the goddess hard enough to make her swoon, and for a moment the world around her-her men, the church, the officers making their way towards them-vanished. In its place came something else, something that made her blood run cold even as if filled her with ecstasy.

_She stood in the midst of an ocean of red. No matter where her gaze traveled, it was more of the same. Everyone, everything, bathed in red. It smelled of burning flesh and urine and feces, even more strongly of blood, and her stomach rolled at the reek. The walls, the floor, the windows...even the ceiling. Nothing but blood. So much blood. _

_She looked down to her hands, black with the flesh of her victims. She looked to her body, stained as red as the puddles she splashed through. She was alive...she'd wanted so desperately to live...And the demon had been true to its words._

_She'd been the only one it had left alive._

_What had she done?_

_Something was shaking her shoulder. It was being very insistent, and the loud whispers of 'Boss' were not helping any. Her hands clenched and her breath came out in quick, soft pants. Something small and dark hissed in the back of her mind, and with a snarl she wheeled to face it, hands curled into talons, ready to-_

"Boss? Boss! Snap out of it! We can't have you going 'Jedi' on us right now! Save it for when we're alone!" As more of her consciousness returned to the present, Urd began to recognize the voice as belonging to Kasper.

Violet eyes blinked. Once. Twice. Three times and Urd was enough of herself once more that she batted Kasper's hand off her shoulder, turning her head just enough to give the man a rather heated glare. "Knock it off." She snapped. "I don't need to lose my shoulder to you. I've already lost my mind thanks to your damned obsession with _Star Wars._"

The man raised his hands in surrender, backing away a though afraid she might do more than verbally assault him. However she caught the hint of a grin on his face and knew he'd understood the message she'd relayed to him. A corner of her lips twitched upwards in what might have been a smile of her own, and then it was gone as Urd turned away once more, a scowl on her face as she turned her attention to the four officers watching her display in keen interest. "Which one of you is in charge here?" She demanded.

The officers looked amongst each other with lackluster, a couple grumbling under their breath over something Urd was certain would have earned a slap in the face if she'd bothered to listen, and then one of the men stepped forward.

"That'd be me, Ma'am." He said, eying her critically. "Sergeant Major Vogel." The officer, a tall, skinny man with hair as white as Urd's own, offered a hand to the goddess. "And you are...?"

The woman took it, giving a firm shake as she introduced herself. "Atropis Dis, CIB. We were called in to see if we couldn't lend our own expertise to the Färber case."

Apparently she'd said the wrong thing, for suddenly Urd found herself under assault by a variety of dark looks and chaotic vibes. And while the vibes tickled, causing the little demon on her shoulder to perk up in interest, it was also in the opposite direction of what she'd intended.

Vogel bristled. "I can assure you Miss Dis, my men and I are all perfectly capable of handling the investigation ourselves." He said coolly. "We appreciate the offered help, but as I'm sure you can see we have more than enough able bodies on this case already." _We don't need some government agency calling the shots._

She hadn't meant to hear the thought. If she could, Urd would have avoided it altogether. Yet there was so much anger, so much _rage_ behind the thought that it bordered on chaotic, and even with the mental walls she'd erected for just such a situation the thought had managed to slip through.

"Besides, begging your pardon, Ma'am, but you don't look to be in the best condition." Vogel continued. "You look like you'd sooner be investigating a bed rather than a murder scene, what with how pale you look." Despite the rage coming off him in waves moments ago, Vogel's concern seemed earnest enough, and Urd attempted a smile at the old man.

"I'm quite alright, I assure you. It's just that I have something of a sensitive nose, you see, and the air here is thick with the smell of incense. It made me more than a little light-headed, but I've adjusted enough to it that it shouldn't be too much of a bother for me." Lutz wasn't the only one who could lie through his teeth. "And believe me, I can understand any trepidation you and your men must be feeling, what with us intruding on your territory and such. We'd read the many reports of the men and women on this case, and even _my_ boss had to admit your work was commendable." Urd spread her hands in front of her, looking as non-threatening as possible. "Unfortunately, you can't please the world, and so..."

"...And so here you are." Vogel finished for her, and Urd smiled, nodding in agreement.

The man grunted, folding his arms over his chest and looking somewhat uncomfortable. _What's that old saying?_ Urd thought. _Ah, that's right, 'kill 'em with kindness...'_ "We know we aren't needed here as well, however the higher-ups get upset if we don't go out and at least look around, so..." She shrugged, allowing her hands to drop to her side. "All we need is an hour at most-just enough time to collect enough evidence that will make the supes satisfied." Urd stared at the man in earnest, meeting pale blue eyes and _push__ed_.

Vogel blinked at the goddess and quickly averted his eyes with a frown. For a moment he was silent, and Urd could almost see the gears in his head working as he mulled over the situation. Finally he looked back at the dark woman. "You said you'd be gone in an hour?"

Urd's smile grew larger. "Less, if your men don't bother us."

A final moment of hesitation, and Vogel sighed. "Forty-five minutes. Any longer and we'll throw you out. Understand?"

"Perfectly."

* * *

"What'd I tell you? Jedi mind tricks." Kasper waved his hands and wiggled his fingers in what Urd could only assume must have been an impression of the 'mind trick' she'd worked on Vogel.

Funny. She didn't recall waving her hands around like an idiot.

Jasper at least had the decency not to comment on the man's eccentricities. "Yes Kasper, that's all well and nice, now would you please drop it?" She said sweetly. "Before I use my 'Jedi mind powers' to turn you into a newt?"

The three of them were alone, the many officers on scene having left for what Vogel called a 'smoke break'. Wiley and Kloshkin had separated from the others to take point near any of the church's entrances, where they were joined by Lutz. The trio were acting as guard dogs for any curious denizens or officers who'd decided to come back 'early' to see just what it was the CIB were up to. It left Urd with Kasper and Jasper, now approaching the large twin doors that led into the worshiping hall in the center of the church.

The scene of the crime, a great many strong chaotic waves had imprinted within the area; strong pieces of negative residue emotion that had literally imbedded themselves within the church walls. Such imprints were common within the Assiah; suicides, murders, tragedies of any and all sorts were capable of leaving imprints. In fact, most haunted areas were considered common places for such things, the remnants of tragedies that cycled over and over again, like broken records, long after the soul had left that plain for the Underworld.

Such would be the case with the church Urd now strolled through. Objects would move and specters would be observed, so powerful were the emotions, strong enough to continue their cycle long after the church was torn to the ground, as was the nature with such haunted places of worship. And what might be built in its place...

Urd left the thought unfinished, releasing a deep intake of breath as another wave of chaos pummeled her body. It caused the hair on the back of her neck to rise and sent a shiver down her spine, causing the woman to shudder. They were approaching the heart of the mass of chaos now, and the waves had become a constant buzz in her head; segmented waves that spread out like the pulse of a beating heart.

The chaotic vibes were getting stronger, and the goddess could feel their affect growing on her person. The woman's heart was in her ears, raging quick and fast and leaving her light of breath. She could feel the fear of the area, as real as if it were a living beast, and dark skin broke into goosebumps against the cool air. The taste of blood was rich and thick in her mouth, and when Urd swallowed she could almost feel the phantom liquid slide down her throat.

The sensation was enough to make the silver-haired woman pause. "Boss?" Kasper spoke, looking over his shoulder to the violet-eyed woman.

Urd opened her mouth to respond; that it was nothing, she was just feeling light-headed again, when another wave of chaos crashed into her. This one was strong enough to physically send her reeling, and clutching her head with one hand Urd stumbled into a wall. The goddess squeezed her eyes shut with a grunt, and when she opened them once more...

_...they were running from her. The two that were once her guides lay fallen at her feet. She licked her lips, tasting their blood before ripping off another piece of one man's heart. She swallowed the piece whole, barely chewing and enjoying the feel of the tissue sliding down her throat. How long had it been since last she gorged like this?_

_Too long. With a smile she watched her prey scurry from her like rats, racing from one door to another, pulling at handles and panicking when the doors did not part. Others raced to the many glass murals of damned saints and monstrous beasts, grabbing torches and crashing them into the stained glass. When the glass did not break, did not so much as crack, their screams rose higher, and she watched in humor as they darted with little direction, lost in the panic of mindless beasts._

_She finished the first of many a meal and looked to her next victim, meeting the mad gaze of the priest that had called to her. Their eyes met. The man stumbled back, tripping over his own robes and falling to the ground. His cowl fell away, and she paused to simply observe him, drinking in his fear, his rage, and laughing in delight. _

_Something glinted from within his robes, and immediately her hand came up, catching the knife he'd thrown at her face. She observed it carefully, curiously, before crushing the iron in her hand. The ruined ironwork fell to the ground, unheard underneath the cries of the damned. Empty now her hand lashed out like a snake, and when she pulled back the man was clutching his face, howling in pain and writhing on the ground._

_She'd plucked his eye from its socket, and as the man twisted and squirmed at her feet she observed the eye; wet, round jelly in her hand molded into the form of a ball. A bundle of nerves lay connected in a long string on a portion of the eyeball and she wrapped a finger around them, entwining the digit in the nerves as if it were string before twirling it around playfully__._

_Something hot and jagged scalded her back, and her play came to a halt, the bundle of nerves snapping from the sudden halt of motion and sending the eyeball sailing into the crowd of black robes. Something grabbed her arms, and though she fought, she found she could not move. She opened her mouth..._

_..._and Urd howled in pain. She fought, she struggled, yet no matter what the goddess did she seemed unable to escape her binds, the bronze woman's actions only seeming to bring forth even more pain as something dragged her away from her prey. Then her eyes caught sight of who her prey was, and Urd froze.

Carefully, Kasper removed himself from the wall Urd had pinned him against, clutching one eye in pain as he released a long, drawn out hiss of breath. The blonde's face was covered in scratches, most red and puffy, others deep enough to be speckled with blood. His shirt was ripped and she could see a nasty purple bruising spreading around his throat."Urd? Boss? Are you..._you _again?" He asked warily, taking another step back and furthering the distance between the two of them. "Because if you aren't, and you start speaking in tongues, I swear to God Urd, I'll put a shotgun to your head and pull the trigger myself."

_Oh shit._ The woman paled, and whatever energy that had so briefly possessed her vanished, and Urd felt her knees give out underneath her. The woman gasped in pain as her arms resisted, and after a moment Jasper moved to his knees behind her as well, still keeping the woman's arms pinned. "Fuck!" She snarled, any feeling brought on from the pleasant buzz in her head vanishing in an instant. "Kasper! You eye! What did I-are you okay?"

The man grinned, though Urd was not blind to the nervousness it held. "Heh, I don't know boss. But I'm sure a kiss will make it all better." The man removed his hand, giving Urd witness to the numerous angry red lines along the eyelid and the shiner slowly swelling around the socket.

The violet-eyed woman winced at the sight, feeling her own eye throb in sympathy for the damage inflicted. Yet still Urd relaxed, if only minutely. "If you can still joke around like that after what I just did to you, you must be fine." She sighed with relief. "Especially when you know I make it a rule not to fraternize with the people under me."

"Does that mean I can be on top?"

Urd sent the man a look.

"Damn." Kasper scowled and his gaze traveled to her shoulder. "What?" He demanded, and Urd could only imagine the expression that must have adorned Jasper's face. "A man can dream, can't he?" He asked, and Urd could only sigh and shake her head. "Anyways, I think it's safe to let the boss lady go, Jasper. She didn't try to seduce me or spit bile in my face, so I think it's safe to say she isn't possessed."

The comment caused Urd to laugh despite the high tension of the moment, and it wasn't until she calmed that Jasper eased the grip on her arms. As his grasp faded from her flesh Urd rolled her shoulders, working the circulation back into limbs that had begun to grow numb. As she did the silver-haired woman looked over her shoulder to the dark-haired man. "And you? I didn't hurt you too, did I Jasper?" She inquired, scrutinizing the man for any signs of damage even as the quite man shook his head.

"I'm fine." He said. "You went after the first thing you saw-_him._" He chucked a thumb over to Kasper.

"Hey!"

"And while he played bait I was able to haul you off him." Dark brows furrowed together in concern. "You going to be okay? It's not everyday your own boss goes crazy and tries to strangle a fellow employee." He paused. "Let me rephrase that-it isn't everyday _you_ go crazy and try to kill a fellow employee."

Urd raised a silver brow. "Are you implying that it's common for a boss to try and kill one of her employees?"

The man shrugged. "Depends on the job."

The goddess scoffed and shook her head, slowly raising herself once more to her feet with a wince. "Either way, I'm glad you stopped me before I did any real damage. And Kasper, I _am _sorry about what I did to you. That was..." The woman trailed off, fighting to come up with a proper explanation for her actions.

Kasper waved her off, licking a finger and dabbing his eye gently. "Don't worry about it. It's what you pay us for, right?"

_No. It isn't. I pay you to watch my back during the more dangerous business transactions on the black market. Not to prevent me from killing my own men._

Urd smiled weakly. "Of course."

The dark woman looked to the large twin doors several feet in front of her. They were made of a deep, rich red wood. Intricate vines and leaves were carved into the frame, creating a beautiful scene for any who passed through its frame to worship. _I wasn't even in the room, yet there was enough chaos to completely engulf me in it's waves. What would I have done if Jasper hadn't stopped me?_

In all her years on Earth, Urd could not recall a time where she'd felt so out of control. She was a woman who traded insults with a _Spentzna_ and praised _Allah_ with an _Imam _and _Wali_. She'd danced with _Vodun _priests and started riots in South Ossetia. Run through the streets of Israel as rockets rained from the sky and traded war stories for liquor with a retired Black Ops commander. All in the pursuit of chaos. It fed the little demon in the back of her mind and kept it sated, from growing so hungry that she'd lose control over it. Yet even with all the countries she'd visited, even with the companies she did business with, Urd could not recall a time where the chaos of an area was so...so _concentrated_ that it actually overwhelmed her.

What would happen when she stepped into that room?

_Only one way to find out..._A voice teased in a sing song voice from somewhere in the back of her mind. The woman's throat was dry, and she swallowed reflexively. Her pulse was a roar in her ears as the goddess stared at the door, and for the life of her she couldn't tell if it was fear or anticipation that caused her heart to beat so quickly. Somewhere in another portion of her head, another voice rose in a scream, telling her to run away, that what she was about to do wasn't worth it, that she might lose herself completely this time.

And for the first time since she could remember, Urd was mighty tempted to listen to that little voice of reason.

But no. The violet-eyed woman dismissed the voice. She _needed_ to go into that room. It was the only way she was going to find out who had been summoned, what had happened to the many worshiping bodies, to know the appropriate countermeasures that would need to be taken against a new threat.

And she needed to know the limits of just how much chaos she was capable of handling.

The silver-haired goddess swallowed again, reaching into a pocket and withdrawing something from it's folds. "Jasper, I want you to call the others." She said, forcing her gaze away from the door and to the man in question. "Tell them to get over here as quickly as possible. It may be just a hunch, but something tells me things are about to get real ugly around here."

Violet eyes drifted to Kasper, and the tan woman moved towards the man. "Here." She offered the object from her pocket. "When I tell you, I want you to open one of those doors." She pointed to the twin wooden frames.

Bright brows furrowed together. "You can't do it yourself?" Kasper looked down to the object in his hands with a frown. "And Boss-a tazer?" He examined it carefully. "I didn't even know they made them with so many-is this thing even legal?" He looked up to her, and violet met a pair of concerned brown. "Urd...there's enough volts in this thing to fry an elephant's brain. I could _kill_ you with this thing."

The silver-haired goddess shrugged uncomfortably. "If everything goes as I hope, it won't come down to you having to use it on me." She responded. "Think of it as...insurance." The woman pointed to the doors. "Because once I go into that room, I can't guarantee anything. But in order for it to work, I need you to open those doors, because I dare not touch either one, and I need you to be ready in case something goes wrong."

She smiled at him. It didn't reach her eyes. "That's what I pay you for, isn't it?"

Urd waved him towards the door and the man hesitated. The goddess watched as his gaze darted to Jasper's, and for a moment the two seemed to share some unspoken conversation. Than Kasper looked away with a frown and moved towards the two doors, grabbing the handle of one and pulling it open. The door cracked and groaned in the effort, and as the first sight of the inner worshiping hall splintered into view, so too did the chaos.

It was like a tornado, one that slammed into her with enough force to leave her breathless, and the feeling was exhilarating. Slowly, a smile spread across Urd's face, teeth a bright and shiny contrast to her skin. Without realizing it the goddess began to walk, and violet eyes darted this way and that after phantoms both real and imaginary.

She didn't see Kasper as she passed him, who saw her expression and shuddered in a sudden fear. The goddess took her first step into the scene of the crime.

And than saw nothing at all.

* * *

_Her stomach hurt._

_That was the first thing she noticed upon entering the mortal realm._

_Her stomach hurt and something wet was dripping down her body. She looked down, recognizing the hilt of one of the ceremonial knives imbedded in her body. She frowned. Well now, that just wouldn't do at all. A hand reached down and wrapped around the hilt, and with a grunt she pulled the blade from her belly. It stung, and a fine mist of red sprayed from the wound. _

_She spat in her free hand and wiped the saliva across the hole, sealing the puncture instantly. A smile spread across her face. To her right, one of the men that had stabbed her stumbled back, and as she turned her gaze to him she could see the horror dawning in his face. She laughed at the expression before lashing out, faster than lightening, and her free hand emerged from his back, covered in red and white and black, and as she withdrew her hand from his chest she wrapped the limb around his heart, ripping it from his body._

_The man had enough time to stare at the pumping organ in shock before his gaze blackened and the man fell to the ground, dead. She stared at the corpse while taking a bite of the heart, and it gushed as she tore into it, tasting thick and metallic in her mouth. That was when the screams started, and something slid out of her body. She looked down, watching as the stained metal of the other blade slowly sank into her chest, causing a fresh geyser of blood to spring forth from the new cavity._

_She scowled, sealing it as she had the other and turning to the man behind her, his hand wet with her blood, clamped tight around the second knife once embedded in her body. With a roar he launched himself at her, his attack wild and predictable, and she sidestepped his slash. He moved past her and with another step she was behind him, hand wrapping around the back of his neck and nails like talons digging into his flesh. He screamed and twisted under her grip, trying desperately to escape, to turn and slash at her once again, and slowly she increased the pressure. His fear was like honey, sweet and sugary, and she took her time with him, digging further and further, fingers burrowing into his neck like maggots until he dropped his weapon and his hands flew around her wrist in a vane effort to separate himself from her._

_Finally she had her fill, and she clenched her hand into a fist, fingers sinking further into his neck, ripping past his jugular and wrapping around his spine. She ripped the bones in her hand out, and his head fell forward, connected to his body only by a small flap of flesh. Blood squirted from the injury, and with a light tap, the body fell forward, chest collapsing on the head and tearing the final flap of skin apart from the body._

_She licked her lips, enjoying the metallic taste before turning her gaze to the crowd, to the many believers who'd damned themselves in a pursuit for power. A small mental click here, and the door refused to open. A mental wash there, and the window woulds not break. Their panic was endlessly amusing, like watching rats trapped in a metal box, scurrying and climbing over each other in a fight for freedom. And that's what they were, she realized; nothing but rats dressed in human clothes._

_Still, they climbed over each other in a desperate flight for freedom. Still they attacked one another, pushing the weaker aside to be trampled to death by the others. Still, they would devour themselves if it meant freedom from their cage._

_She smiled._

"_What are you doing!?" A voice rose behind her, and she turned from the chaos to regard the priest. "I am the one who has summoned you! You are to obey my every command!" He raved, eyes blind with madness. "I did not order this...this madness! I did not order the death of my people!"_

_Here she frowned, and in her chest a great rage seethed. The other one, she knew, the one so desperate to live-the child recognized her true murderer, and she sought his death with a passion._

_And she was only too happy to respond._

_She took a step to the priest; first one, than another, and the man backed away in accordance, desperate to keep a distance between them. He tripped on his own robes, and as he fell she towered over him, splattered in blood both her own and foreign. She saw the blade coming even as he reached in his robes, and when she caught it she crushed it with her fist._

"_I obey no man."_

_And she plucked his left eye out, watching coolly as he screamed and writhed on the floor. She left him there, rolling and crying and bleeding, and turned once more to her audience. Several of the men had gained some form of sense about them, it seemed, and she watched as together they hoisted one of the torch-pillars, bearing it in front of them like a flaming battering ram. They charged her with screams, racing up the stairs as fast as their robes would allow it, and with the sweep of her hand they flew back down the steps. They landed with moans and grunts, and with a twirl of her finger the flames of their torch enveloped them._

_Their fresh screams added to the chorus of cries around her, and satisfied she took a moment to regard her work. So many bodies...so many souls...a smile spread across her face, and she looked to her left, where the man who's heart still rested in her hands lay. Why not spread the love?_

_She consumed the remains of the heart before kneeling at the dead man's side. "Come." She cooed. "It's time to awaken."_

_His heart gone and his eyes dead, the man's body began to twitch;lightly at first, before growing more violent and sporadic. His body changed, grew larger, darker, until the creature that laid at her feet could scarcely be called a man. It rose, stumbling at first, and talons sank deep into the ground as it fought it's new center of balance. It raised its head, resting on thick, black haunches, and she laid her hand on its muzzle._

_The _Rakshasa_ newly created, she observed the crowd. "To all who stand before me!" She announced, and her voice echoed and boomed throughout the chamber, rough and harsh and rising high above the maddening screams of her audience. "Who of you wishes to live? Who of you desires power?" As her voice rose the many voices of the people gradually grew quiet, until only the pained howls of a priest echoed her words. "Pledge yourselves to me, and I shall give you what you seek. Disobey-"_

_The monster rose with a shriek, one eerily mortal and terrifying. With little warning it pounced on the priest behind her, and the cries of pain rose into the desperate pleas of a man being eaten alive. _

"_-and die."_

_The screams were abruptly cut off, and in its place was the low grinding crunch and pop of bone._

_And all at once they came to her, a massive sea of cloaks, running and charging to her, begging for mercy, for freedom, for _power_. And as they crawled up the stairs the _Rakshasa_ leaped once more, multiplied times two, and as the great beasts landed on their next victims, she spread her hands high above her head. "Give your lives to me and you shall be rewarded! Denounce your gods in the name of Marller and gain a strength like none you've ever before witnessed!"_

_She laughed as beneath her, the _Rakshasa_ tore open one man's chest, another devouring a woman's __heart. She laughed as their bodies mutated, and where once were two, now four stood. What once were four became eight. Their numbers rising by the minute, she basked in the glory of her monsters, listening with her mind the rise of voices, chanting her name and giving her strength. Mad though they were, they had long ago lost their faith in the gods. And when struck with a choice between a demons might or a death at the hands of monsters, their choice was obvious._

_It was not long before nothing but a moving mass of black flesh lay at her feet, and she descended the staircase, walking amongst her new pets and occasionally stepping over the body of one soul who'd decided to brave the claws of a beast rather than sell their souls for power. Her hands rubbed over the flesh of the _Rakshasa_, curling around the edges of spiked, hard flesh and flicking the points of long, ivory fangs. In the center of the mass she spoke once more._

"_Come! Discard your old shells! It is time for us to leave this place for new hunting grounds." There was a large and echoing crash around her, and at the feet of the creatures laid the corpses of what they once were, their expressions of grim terror and hands forever curved into claws, desperately fighting for their last bit of life. Departed of their last bit of humanity the _Rakshasa_ floated, spectral images that swarmed around her in a black mass of rage and hate._

_She smiled and they vanished, leaving her alone with the dead. It was silent now, silent as the grave, and she observed her work with the scrutiny of a master artist, finally taking a deep breath and smiling. "And with this, our contract is complete, Winola Färber."_

_And with that the demon was gone, leaving her gasping and panting. The alien strength that had once possessed her was gone, and she fell to her knees dumbly, her mind unresponsive to the world around her. The scent of blood was thick in the air, and her stomach rolled violently. Yet she seemed incapable of vomiting. She'd eaten another man's heart, had tasted blood not her own. What had she done?_

_She'd brought a demon into their world on accident._

_What had she done?_

_She began to whimper._

_She hadn't meant for so many people to die._

_What had she done?_

_It rose into a cry._

_She'd created monsters with her own two hands._

_What had she done?_

_The cries became sobs._

_She'd damned over one hundred people._

_What had she done?_

_The sobs rose into screams._

_What had she done? What had she done? What had she done? What had she done? What-_

"-have I done?"

"You have done nothing."

The voice was unfamiliar; a low rumble of a growl thick with a Slavic accent. She quieted at the tone, for unfamiliar though it was, it held a softness that put Urd at ease. Something warm was wrapped around her shoulders and her head rested on something equally warm and soft. With more effort than should have been needed Urd opened her eyes, staring at an unfamiliar dark ceiling.

For a long moment, the goddess simply stared at the darkness, so unrecognizable from the church it was near frightening, and when the car hit a bump in the road Urd jumped.

The warm object around her shoulders tightened, and for a brief moment that well of panic that had become so familiar to her as Winola, as _Marller_, returned to her. Than came the grizzly voice from before. "You are safe. Rest. Nothing will harm you." This time she recognized the voice and Urd leaned her head back, neck stiff and aching from the leg her head was resting in.

"Kloshkin?"

It took the goddess a moment to recognize the voice as her own; it sounded raw and worn, and when she spoke her throat burned horribly. Her jaw ached with tension and her tongue throbbed painfully, as though she'd bitten it in her sleep. She could taste blood on her lips.

A deep rumble was her response, and when the car was jostled again Urd didn't fight against the large man as his arm held her down, keeping the woman's aching body from jostling too much. And as he did the rest of her body made itself known, and Urd groaned as a deep pain flared in her back, traveling into a pulsing ache that spread across the rest of her limbs.

A dark head poked it's head over the row of seats in front of her, and a framed face looked down at her with a grin. "Oh good, you're awake." Wiley said, taking a moment to push his glasses farther up against his nose. "After what Fucktard did, I wasn't sure you'd wake up again."

The goddess groaned once more, rubbing a hand against her forehead. Her hand tingled as though it'd fallen asleep. "Who?" She croaked.

The dark man pointed to the blonde next to him. "You know-Fucktard. The shithead you entrusted a goddamned tazer to."

Kasper swatted the hand away with a snarl. "Hey man, fuck you too."

"Tazer?" Silver brows furrowed together in recollection. "I don't remember a tazer."

A look of disbelief flew across Wiley's face, the man's eyes growing large enough Urd thought they might pop out of his skull. "You mean you don't _remember?" _He cried out in surprise. Beside him, Kasper's face flushed in either embarrassment or rage-Urd was too exhausted to tell the difference.

Wiley looked back to the pale man beside him. "Hey Fucktard, can you _believe_ it? Our poor, abused, sizzled boss doesn't remember you fucking tazing her!" The sarcasm in his voice was far from subtle, and the blush on Kasper's face only grew darker.

"Hey, shut the fuck up!" Kasper growled, and Wiley's hands flew up in defense, backing as far away from Kasper as his seat belt would allow it.

"Don't taze me Bro!"

There argument grew louder, and Urd moaned as the chaotic energy rose in the car. For once it didn't give her the light-headed buzz she so often enjoyed. Right now it was only making her feel sick.

Kloshkin must have seen the green look to her face. "You rest." He instructed, and for the first time in the Almighty knew how long, Urd felt like she was seven years old again. "I shall quite the others."

In no mood to rebel against the large man's instructions, Urd took a deep breath and sighed once more, closing her eyes and listening to Kasper and Wiley argue. She felt Kloshkin carefully shift around her, followed by a soft rumbling growl. One violet eye peeked open just in time to watch the bear-man grab the sides of Wiley's and Kasper's heads, then slam them together in a rather audible _clonk_.

The goddess couldn't help but grin at the action, and her eye slid shut once more, listening as Kloshkin shushed them. From somewhere else, she heard Lutz speak up in a loud whisper. "You heard Papa Bear, Kids. Mommy isn't feeling too hot, and your fighting isn't helping any. Now both of you need to shut it before I pull this car over and leave you on the road."

Kloshkin leaned back against the seat once more, and Urd felt the arm rest lightly on her shoulders once more. _Marller's here._ She thought, her mind sluggish as sleep enticingly curled around her brain. _I need to warn Dee. I need to help Winola. I need to...need to..._

Something warm and soft spread across her body, and for whatever reason Urd could only picture a pair of wings in her mind._ Rest. _A voice not her own rose in her mind, and Urd could almost feel arms wrapping around her in a mother's embrace. _You've gone through your own trial, Dearheart. Let your body recover. You are safe and amongst friends. Winola Färber will not be going anywhere and you must trust that Verthandi can take care of herself should Marller go after her._

She could almost feel something stroking her head, and for a second Urd thought it was Kloshkin before deciding it didn't matter. The voice was right and she was too tired to argue against it. Dee wasn't a child anymore. And Winola would still be around when she woke up. The woman curled into as tight a ball as the chair seat would allow against the man who kept her from falling, and surrounded by her men and comforted by a voice not her own, Urd slept.

* * *

It was a heavy knock on the door that awakened Megumi from her morning slumber. Bleary eyed and half asleep the young woman rolled over and slammed the top of her alarm clock before rolling over and snuggling into her comforter once again. When the knocking only grew more rambunctious, a blood-shot eye peeked open and Megumi looked over her shoulder and to the clock.

_Kami_ on a donkey, it wasn't even six yet.

Whoever was making such a racket on the other side of her door obviously hadn't been informed of the definition of _weekend_, and so with a groan the young woman threw the comforter from her body and slowly moved to stand. "Right, right, I'm coming." The dark-haired youth yawned mightily, walking to the door and hearing the first strands of a muffled voice from beyond. It sounded desperate and hysterical, and proved enough to further wake the young Morisato and make a detour to her closet.

There, she withdrew her baseball bat from where it rested beneath the matching uniform before once again moving towards the door. "I said I'm coming! Don't break the door down, alright?" She snapped, and this time the muffled voice from outside fell silent. "Some people, I swear..."

Grumbling, the youth stowed the bat behind her, unlocking the door and opening it with her free hand. "Yeah?" Brown eyes peeked through the small crevice of the door frame and met a pair of terrified blue. Megumi blinked.

"Please let us in."

The door swung wide and quickly Megumi ushered the woman in, maneuvering herself around Belldandy to help the brunette bear Keiichi's weight. "Shit, what happened?" Megumi shut the door with her foot, and safely inside the youth guided her companions to her futon. Still warm with Megumi's body heat, carefully the duo laid Keiichi down.

The man groaned and muttered in his sleep, tossing and turning restlessly and growing tangled in the blankets he rested upon. Megumi rested a hand against her brother's forehead and cursed. "He's burning up! Hang on, let me grab a-" The girl removed her hand from Keiichi and moved to stand, only for a hand to wrap around her wrist.

It felt warm and clammy, and with a strength no fevered man should have, Keiichi wrenched her back down. "...Gumi...not gonna let..." Keiichi's eyes fluttered weakly, and the man released her wrist with a cry, clutching his head in pain and panting heavily. "..Oming...run..."

Megumi hesitated for a moment, then kneeled back down next to Keiichi, grabbing his hand and squeezing it gently. "Hang in there, Keiichi, you'll be alright." The man seemed to calm at her voice, and his rest grew more peaceful.

Something patted her shoulder and the woman looked up, meeting sympathetic blue eyes and smiling in thanks as she took the moist cloth Belldandy offered her. Gently, Megumi pressed the wet cloth against Keiichi's forehead, taking a moment to observe the man in concern. She squeezed his hand once more before releasing her grip on his hand, and when Keiichi made no move to grab her the youth rose silently, looking to Belldandy expectantly.

Catching the hint, the goddess moved towards the exit of the small room, Megumi fast behind her, and together they moved into the small kitchenette. The young woman moved to lean against the counter, and crossing her arms across her chest the youth planted her gaze on Belldandy. "Alright now, explanation time. Let's here it."

Megumi's tone was steady and calm, her face expressionless, and Belldandy winced. The woman was giving her the benefit of the doubt, yet Belldandy was not blind to the undercurrent of emotions the goddess could see in just her eyes alone. Confusion, concern, anger, fear; all were present in the girl's dark brown eyes.

"Vermin infestation."

Megumi raised an eyebrow, and Belldandy took a deep breath. "The shrine's been overrun...with vermin." When the girl across from her made no move to speak, Belldandy continued, wringing the ruined fabric of her nightgown nervously. "I can't say how it happened without us knowing about it." She said, eying the counter with interest. "All I know was that early this morning, Keiichi awoke me with a scream. He must have seen them, or perhaps one of the creatures bit him, but whatever the reason it caused him to run screaming into my room as though mad." The goddess bit her lip, risking a glance at Megumi.

The woman gestured for her to continue, and so Belldandy moved on. "We...fought. I believe Keiichi forgot what had originally brought him to my room in the first place, and he left in anger. When he left..." The goddess shuddered visibly. "I...ran into them." The goddess spread her arms, gesturing to her nightgown and the various holes and tears in the fabric. "I was able to make it outside, and that was where I found Keiichi, collapsed. After that..."

The brunette gestured around her, and Megumi raised an eyebrow. "You came here?" The woman chewed her lip in thought. "That's quite an ordeal you went through, Belldandy." She leaned forward, her gaze moving away from the goddess and to her room, open and baring a restless Keiichi. "I find it incredibly hard to believe that a woman who looked like she'd been attacked by a rapist in her sleep managed to pick up a horse like my brother, drag him to his bike, and then safely navigate downtown Nekomi at sunrise to drop him off safely at his little sister's house." She sent Belldandy a pointed look. "Never mind the fact that the first thing you should have done was get to a hospital and..." Megumi ran a hand through her hair. "_Fuck_, can you even ride a bike?"

Belldandy winced. "We managed to arrive here safely, if that's what you mean, Megumi." She said vaguely, wanting very much to move the topic away from the rather supernatural situation at hand. In all honesty, Belldandy wondered at why she'd even come to Megumi. It wasn't as though the younger Morisato had an inkling of who Belldandy really was and it was doubtful the young woman could even help her in her current predicament.

Yet when she'd opened her eyes, it was outside Megumi's door that she found Keiichi and herself after teleporting away from the shrine-a spell she found rather difficult without the aid of a mirror and one that had left her shaking and panting for a good long while after the danger had passed before Belldandy could muster the strength necessary to knock on the door.

Megumi seemed to sense her desire to change topics and looked at Belldandy for a long, hard moment. Finally the woman sighed, moving off the wall she'd come to rest against. "There are some sweats in the back closet you can change into. Why don't you get out of those rags while I go check on Keiichi?"

Not waiting for a response Megumi left Belldandy in the kitchen, and the goddess watched her depart. _She really is her brother's sister._ The goddess thought, a small smile working it's way onto her face, unnoticed by the goddess. Taking the younger girl's advice, Belldandy moved to the small closet Megumi had pointed out to her and slid the door open.

A pair of silver-laced jaws smiled down at her.

Belldandy let out a mewling squeak, and the door snapped shut once again, stumbling backwards away from the door and tripping over the small table that rested in the room's center. She tumbled to the ground with a cry and a _thump. _Her heart in her throat, Belldandy lifted her head to peer at the closet door, yet when nothing out of the ordinary happened Belldandy slowly picked herself back up.

Megumi peeked her head into the room. "Belldandy? Are you alright?" She asked, taking in the bewildered state of the goddess with a raised eyebrow. "Please tell me you didn't trip over that table. You never struck me as a klutz."

Belldandy coughed. "It's nothing." She said sharply, wincing as Megumi pulled back from her harsh tone. "Sorry Megumi. I just...I thought I saw a rat." She finished lamely.

"A rat." Megumi repeated in disbelief. "Where, in the closet?"

"Ye-_no!" _Belldandy shouted as Megumi marched past her and to the closet door. Fearlessly, the woman flung the door open, and inside...

The closet was empty.

Megumi stuck her head in the closet, shuffling around clothes hanging from hooks and no small amount of boxes that lined the floor. "You sure about that, Belldandy?" Megumi asked. "Because sure as sin, I don't see any-"

Something shrieked in the darkness, and with a cry of her own Megumi fell backwards. The rat landed in short black hair, and time froze for a brief moment the creature stared hatefully at Belldandy with it's beady red eyes.

That was when all hell broke loose.

"It's. In. My. _HAIR!_" Megumi screamed. "Get it off! _Get if fucking off!_" Her hands moved to grab the creature even as it leaped towards Belldandy, who, likewise, panicked as well. The beast collided with Belldandy's upper chest, and small little claws scrambled for purchase in the holes of her nightgown. Then came the unthinkable as the rodent scurried up Belldandy's nightgown and through the loose neckhole, making a rather aggressive effort at burying itself in Belldandy's cleavage. Its tail stuck up from the collar of the gown, swatting Belldandy's face carelessly.

Now it was Belldandy's turn to scream, and with a shriek the goddess wrapped a hand around the offensive tail, yanking the rat from her body and throwing it across the room. The rat hit a near-by bookcase, knocking over a picture frame, two porcelain lucky cats, a digital clock, and no small assortment of stuffed animals from its top as the rodent slid across it's surface.

"Kill it!"

"With what?"

"My bat! Go and grab my bat!" Megumi pointed towards the front door, where her metal baseball bat had come to rest when dragging Keiichi into her apartment, and Belldandy flew towards it. The goddess leapt over a loveseat and a table with all the grace of a ballerina and snatched the bat from the wall it leaned against, wielding it as though it were a sword.

"Got it!" She cried. "Now what?"

Megumi stared at her with wild eyes, a broom she'd snatched from the very closet the rat had taken shelter in clutched tightly in her hands. "Now _swing_ it!" She roared, and taken aback by something so loud coming from something so small, Belldandy did as ordered. The bat smashed into the bookshelf, missing the rat entirely as it shrieked and leaped from the wood, and there came an audible _snap _from the wood as the shelf snapped in half, sending wood chips flying.

Belldandy stared wide-eyed at the bookshelf in horror, a near-curse slipping past her lips at the damage done to the shelf, yet Megumi seemed not to notice, her attention to heavily focused on the rat. The creature darted across the floor, Megumi close on it's heels as she delivered one snap after another, the rodent oftentimes disappearing under the bristles of the broom, only to reemerge and continue it's run when the young woman lifted the plastic for another swing.

It leaped onto a table, rising itself to its hind legs and arching its back with a hiss.

And with a roar Megumi swung her broom, hitting the rat with the thick plastic the bristles connected to and sending the rodent flying with a hollow _thwack_. The creature sailed through the air screaming, and Megumi and Belldandy chased after it as it collided with a door. And incredibly durable beast, the rat was off and running as soon as its body fell to the ground, racing towards the two woman so intent on its demise and causing Megumi to freeze and stumble back into Belldandy.

Belldandy, still racing forward at the time, had made no action to slow her pace after the rat as had Megumi. And so it was that goddess collided with girl, and both women were pitched forward and to the ground. The rodent, evidently spying an opportunity in the madness, darted in-between two pairs of legs even as Belldandy and Megumi toppled to the floor, instigating newer, louder screams from the duo.

A loud _thump_, and Megumi lifted her head to follow the rat's progress, struggling out from underneath Belldandy as the younger woman watched the rat dart into the room holding Keiichi.

"Aw crap." Megumi cursed as Belldandy rolled off her. "Come on. We need to kill that thing before it hurts Keiichi."

"Right." Belldandy nodded, recalling the beasts in the shrine and deciding that getting rid of the rat was a very good idea indeed. Together, woman and goddess scurried to their feet and, armed with broom and bat, rushed into Megumi's room.

Keiichi stood waiting for them when the duo entered. The man leaned heavily against a table beside the futon, and beneath his boot the rat screamed, hissing desperately and clawing at the floor in a desperate bid for freedom. The man looked from one woman to the other, a dark, bushy eyebrow raising at the temporary weapons both women bore in hand. "Lose something?" The man rasped, and Belldandy could see the beads of sweat that dotted his brow.

"Keiichi." Belldandy said. "You're awake." It was hard to tell if it was surprise or something else that filled the goddess's tone, and the brunette regarded the man with an alien emotion.

The man grunted in response and Megumi stepped forward, a look of hard determination on her face. "Well, awake or not, you shouldn't be up and about like this." She scolded, her eyes darting to the imprisoned rat beneath her brother's foot and back to Keiichi. "Or up and about after rats, Keiichi."

Keiichi's brows furrowed together in confusion, and a look so lost dawned on his face that for a moment Belldandy feared the man had forgotten where he was. The mechanic looked around the room slowly, painfully even, as though every movement brought some new pain to light. "What rat?" He asked, and Keiichi leaned forward, increasing the pressure on his prisoner beneath his heel. The rat's cries grew louder still as Keiichi's weight bore down on it. Belldandy could hear a sickening pop and crack from the rodent's body, followed by and even more disgusting _squelch_, and the rat's cries were abruptly cut off.

Belldandy paled and Megumi turned a little green. "I don't see any rats around here, Megumi." Keiichi continued, removing his foot from the new carcass. "Nothing but a hunter after its prey." Dark eyes found and held Belldandy's and the woman felt her breath catch in her throat. Keiichi's eyes still held a feverish glaze to them, yet for the briefest of moments, they seemed to shine an inhuman red in what little light there was in the small bedroom.

"You know her, don't you."

"Know who?" Belldandy asked sharply, and she could feel the gaze of both the Morisato's on her form. Her eyes never left Keiichi's.

The man nudged the dead rat with the tip of his boot. "The One." He said. "The One who's the master of those monsters. I can hear her in my sleep, Belldandy. I see her in my dreams."

"Keiichi..." Megumi began, taking another step towards the man and gently resting a hand on Keiichi's left arm. "You're sick. You have a fever and were having some nasty fever dreams with it. There aren't any hunters or masters or whatever and you just killed a rat with your foot. You need to lay down before you hurt yourself." Gently she tugged at his arm, yet Keiichi refused to move, his eyes still on Belldandy.

"Belldandy, who the fuck is she?" Keiichi continued as if he never heard his sister's words. "Because she sure as fuck knows you, right to the point of calling you out by name. 'Find Ver...dan...Berthan..._Belldandy_', she says. 'Attack her, wound her, find what's important to her here and make her _suffer_.'" The man grit clutched his head with his free hand and grit his teeth in pain. "She stole my _eyes_, Belldandy." He continued, his voice rough and haggard. "She stole my eyes and replaced them with her own." The dark-haired man leaned forward, tearing his arm from Megumi's grasp and stumbling over to Belldandy, his steps a drunkard's gait.

Keiichi grabbed Belldandy by the shoulders, and this close the goddess now clearly saw the red in his eyes, pupils not so much circular as rounded slits. "Who the fuck is Marller?" Keiichi was screaming now, and in his voice Belldandy could hear his fear. "What did she do to me, Belldandy? _What did she do?_"

"Keiichi, damn it!" Megumi pulled the older man off Belldandy, and the goddess stumbled back, eyes wide and lips parted in shock. "Calm down! Your scaring everyone, and that means me too!" She snapped. "Your sick. Do you understand? S.I.C.K. _Sick. _No one stole your eyes. They're still in their sockets and Belldandy doesn't know anyone named Marller, alright?" The young woman glanced back to Belldandy, her face apologetic. "Belldandy, why don't you go get into those sweats I mentioned earlier? I'm going to have a little chat with my brother here."

"Yes. That would be a...good idea." Knowing a dismissal when she heard one, Belldandy looked one last time to Keiichi, her eyes flickering to Megumi for only a brief second before returning the Keiichi's once more. The man paused in his struggles against his younger sister, and for a moment Belldandy thought she saw a brief moment of understanding flash in his eyes.

The instant passed as quickly as it came however, and Keiichi returned to his earlier protests. Belldandy grimaced but none the less took her leave, sliding shut the door behind her so both siblings might be able to argue without too much fear of her overhearing. The prospect of a fresh set of clothes did sound appealing though, and it would give the goddess some much needed time to think on a new course of action.

Returning to the closet, Belldandy began to rummage around for the promised sweats, relieved to find neither _Rakshasa_ nor rats resting in wait. Keiichi claimed Marller to have replaced his eyes with her own, and sure enough, looking into the man's face had proved as unnerving as if the cursed demon had been right there in front of her.

The goddess found the sweats and the matching pair of pants in one of the dressers in the closet, and silently she withdrew them, the clothes looking as pleasant as the traditional robes she'd worn in heaven before descending. Marller hadn't replaced Keiichi's eyes. Hadn't even stolen them. No, it was a spell, one she'd only heard of from Urd. It allowed the caster to see through the eyes of the spellbound.

With a grunt Belldandy pulled off the remains of her ruined nightgown and let the ruined material fall to the floor. She was going to have to burn that later. The Norn pulled the sweatshirt over her head. So Keiichi had Marller's red eyes...those rats had red eyes too, including the rat that had somehow managed to find its way into Megumi's closet. Belldandy pursed her lips. That could mean that Marller knew where they were. Keiichi's claims of Marller's orders in his sleep only seemed to further validate that theory as well.

"We can't stay here." Belldandy whispered, tugging the sweatpants on and scowling at the tightness of the material. If there had ever been a time Belldandy had wished to be short, it would have been now. The sweatpants ended tightly at her calves, and the brunette knew she was going to have a pair of angry red marks on her legs when she finally found the opportunity to change. The shirt was no better, taunt on her forearms and tight against her chest, the sleeves sliding further up to her elbows whenever Belldandy bent her arms. _Wonderful. At this rate I won't be able to bend over without something tearing._ If she wasn't so grateful to be out of her old clothes Belldandy would have thought the outfit ridiculous.

"We're going to have to leave again if we don't want Megumi involved." She shook her head. "As if I haven't already involved her enough in this predicament. It was a mistake coming here. I can only pray to the Almighty that Marller chooses to leave Megumi alone. Surely she's drawn enough attention to herself already with so many _Rakshasa_ in one place at one time. The demon must know that any further involvement, especially with someone who did not actively call her, would bring Valkyries upon her head." The goddess sighed. "Of all the times for Urd to disappear." She muttered. "She could get that devil woman under control."

Cerulean eyes drifted to the kitchenette, where a phone rested on the counter. She'd memorized the emergency phone number Urd had left the day the older woman had departed, and the phone looked incredibly tempting. _And what do you tell Urd when she picks up? That her childhood friend is in town? That you want her to come home and put a leash on her demon? Urd has her own problems to worry about, else she'd be here with you right now and Marller wouldn't be a problem._

For a moment Peorth flashed across her mind, and Belldandy shot it down before it could even form into a proper thought. Peorth was probably even worse than Marller. Marller would spit in her face, but at least the demon was honest in her hate. Peorth would make sure no one was around before she spat.

Urd wasn't there, Peorth was out of the question and Valkyries wouldn't respond unless Marller did something foolish. "I'll have to confront her myself." Belldandy whispered, and the goddess could feel her gut curl into an uncomfortable knot of apprehension. "Almighty bless it all."

"Belldandy? Are you okay?" Megumi's voice made the goddess jump, and with a start Belldandy whirled to face the woman, who held a look on her face that was torn between amusement and concern. "Shoot, sorry about the sweats. I wish I had something in a larger size, but..." She shrugged helplessly and Belldandy waved her down.

"'No, no, it's quite alright Megumi. I'm happy enough to be out of the nightgown right now." The goddess looked past Megumi and to the bedroom. The door was shut and Belldandy could hear nothing beyond. "How is Keiichi? Were you able to calm him?"

The short woman graced Belldandy with a half-smile. "He should be okay for a little while, though he wouldn't stop about this 'Marller' haunting his dreams." The smile faded. "Listen, I'm going out to see if I can't find a pharmacy or something open this early on a Sunday. That fever of his scares me, and I won't be able to relax until I see it go down. Do you mind keeping an eye on Keiichi while I go out?"

Belldandy nodded, and for the first time that day the goddess smiled. "Of course. Watching over Keiichi is the least I can offer in thanks for your help, Megumi."

"Thanks. Hopefully I won't be gone too long. I'll see you in a few, Belldandy." The woman pulled on a pair of shoes and waved goodbye, the door snapping shut softly behind her. And as soon as she was gone the smile dropped from Belldandy's face and the woman all but ran to Megumi's room.

Keiichi was awake and waiting when Belldandy slid the door open. "You gonna explain who Marller is now?" He croaked.

"As soon as we're out that door and walking the opposite direction Megumi went." The goddess pointed and Keiichi stared.

"What?"

Belldandy paused from her doings and turned to stare the man straight in the eye. "We're being hunted, Keiichi." She said. "And you're the hound."


	3. Vici

_Part 3 of 3_

* * *

The institute read _Gottlieb's Hospital_, and underneath in a smaller script read the words _Frieden im Gott._ The words were carved into a marble slab that rested above the entrance. Perhaps at one time in the hospital's life the words had been polished to a gentle shine. Time and weather had worn away the efforts; however, and the words now protruded dull and dreary. Twigs and string poked out through several of the letters where birds had taken nest, and the words were stained white with their droppings.

"At least the outside looks nice." Urd muttered, looking around at the thick green grass that surrounded the building and the many trees that acted as a living wall around the structure. It blocked the hospital from the eyes of the public lest the public actively sought it out, following the twisting and twining road through the trees and to the hospital's steps. "I hope the inside is as nice as the outside." She said dubiously. The dark woman took a deep breath. The air smelled of pine and grass, fresh and alive.

"Are you going to be alright, Boss?" Lutz moved to stand next to her, and Urd looked up at him with a wane smile.

"I'll be fine. Why wouldn't I?"

She wasn't blind to the concern on his face. "Because not two hours prior Kasper tazed you with enough juice to leave your body smoking. The fact that your alive right now is a miracle. The fact that your walking and not in a hospital-a _real _hospital, mind you, not a hell hole like this-is damned near terrifying. And quite frankly..." The man hesitated, and Urd raised an eyebrow, silently urging him to speak his mind. Lutz grimaced. "Quite frankly Urd, you look like _you're _the one that needs to be admitted to an asylum right now."

Urd laughed dryly. "That bad?" She asked, running a hand through her hair and wincing as her muscles clenched painfully. Her body still ached from the tazer and seemed to take a great pleasure in reminding the goddess of the fact that electricity _hurt._

"You were the one who ordered us to come straight here from the church." Wiley approached with a backpack strapped on one shoulder, and he looked at the institution in displeasure. "If you had any sense in that head of yours, you'd have listened when we said it'd be a better idea to return to the hotel. Then you could sleep a little longer, wake up, freshen up, and be back on your mission without looking like you survived the electric chair."

Urd sighed deeply. "Oh for the love of-alright, _alright_, I understand. I don't look like I should be going into a mental ward. But what would you suggest me do?" She snapped, her temper frayed to its edges with a sore body and a firm wish for the day to come to an end. "I'm not leaving this place until I speak with Winola. _Personally._" She said, sending a pointed look to Wiley that silenced the man even as he opened his mouth to speak. "What would you have me do than? Raid a mental hospital with guns ablaze? How about casting a spell on everyone in the hospi-"

The woman paused in her tirade, and a large smile slowly crept upon her face. Lutz did his best to ignore it but Wiley saw it and took a nervous step back. "Urd?" He said carefully, and devious violet eyes drifted to his own brown. The man visibly stiffened and took another step back. "You've got that look in your eye. What are you planning?"

Urd said nothing. The smile grew larger. The goddess took a step towards the man.

Wiley took another step back and bumped into something behind him. With a grunt the dark man looked behind him, and even darker eyes widened behind his glasses. "Kloshkin?"

"Grab him."

Two meaty hands clamped down on his shoulders, and with a yell Wiley began to struggle. "What the hell!" He snarled, and when Kloshkin showed no signs of releasing him the man went limp, forcing the larger man to grab the bespectacled man by the sleeves of his jacket and hoist him back up. With a grunt Kloshkin did just that, and Wiley slipped out of the sleeves of his jacket, landing on his knees and rolling away from the giant before the stone wall of a man could better adjust his hold.

Free of his jacket and Kloshkin, Wiley darted several feet away from Kloshkin, and the dark man took a moment to point at Urd. "Urd, Boss, no. Not after last time. Just _no._"

Urd said nothing, simply smiled and watched.

"Come on, Wiley, You know there's no escaping it." Jasper approached from Wiley's right, and Lutz came from his left. "Urd's got one of her plans again, and we're being paid to go through with them, remember?"

Wiley backed up, hands curling into fists at his side. "Jasper, the last time I went through with one of Urd's plans, you bastards dressed me up in drag and made me flirt with that rebel group's second-in-command."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"He found out I was a dude!"

"And?"

"The fucker kissed me! On the lips! With his _tongue_!"

A pale set of arms wrapped around Wiley's neck, and the man looked behind him at Kasper. "Maybe you just attract that kind of attention, Love." He cooed, batting his eyes at the darker man.

Wiley swung a fist at the man. Kasper dodged it, and the others swarmed.

And Urd did nothing but laugh.

* * *

The receptionist looked up from the paper she was filling out as the little bell hung upon the front door dinged in greeting. Following the cheerful chime came a violent curse accompanied with yells and shouts audible even through the thick bullet-proof glass that surrounded her. _Oh dear. _She thought in dread, watching with a frown as a rather haggard looking woman held the door open for the two men attempting to drag in a third. _Here comes another one._

The receptionist rose from her seat even as the ever-present security guard-his uniform read _Yosef_-moved to intervene. The shouts and screams from the struggling man grew louder still, and as Yosef dealt with the trio of men, the woman slid past and approached the receptionist.

"Hello." The woman smiled pleasantly at the receptionist. "I'm here to commit my brother. What are the necessary forms I need to fill out?"

Behind her, the struggling man lashed out in a headbutt, striking Yosef square in the head as he lashed out with a kick at the larger of the two men forcefully escorting him inside. He seemed to be screaming in a variety of languages, only one of which the receptionist understood as 'God damn you'.

"Do you have a doctor's referral?" The receptionist asked. "I'll also need two forms of ID as well as a proof of address before I can hand the sheets over."

"Of course." The woman dug into a purse the receptionist hadn't noticed prior the woman's entry and withdrew a wallet and a letter. From the wallet she withdrew a driver's license and an ID badge the receptionist sometimes heard big businesses liked to use. "These should suffice, and the proof of address should be on the referral." The woman was tall and dark. Looking over at her brother, the receptionist decided that between the two of them, both siblings being dark was probably the only thing they had in common. Otherwise they looked nothing alike.

"Thank-you." The receptionist said politely, taking the offered items with a slight frown. Looking them over quickly the receptionist slid the IDs and the letter back to the woman, who's name was Urdesa Schwartz and who worked at a local business who's name sounded familiar, yet for the life of her the receptionist couldn't recall from where it came.

With the ease of practice the receptionist flipped through one of the many shelves lined with paper and withdrew the needed sheets, gathering them all together and slipping them through the small paper tray to Miss Schwartz. "There are seats around the corner which will allow you some privacy from other visitors." The receptionist went on. "Feel free to have a seat while we attend to your brother's needs." The words were heavily scripted, and as the woman departed, the receptionist sat back down, pressing a small button on the intercom and speaking into it.

Safe and assured that more of the staff would be coming to aid the new and unruly patient, the receptionist looked back over the desk at the four men. It had taken two men to bring the newcomer through the door, three to prevent him from lashing out at anyone. The receptionist didn't want to think how many it would take to control the man.

And so she watched them all, warily recalling horror stories of patients who'd gone mad and managed to somehow get a hold of a pen or a fork, and use it against one of the staff members.

So heavily focused was she, the receptionist never noticed Urdesa Schwartz move the opposite direction she'd been instructed. And as two nurses entered the lobby to help subdue their newest patient, the woman slipped through the door, walking down the hall towards where the patients were held, hands empty of the papers given to her minutes prior.

* * *

The key to getting into an area you weren't allowed to be in was to act like you belonged. If you looked like you had a purpose in the area, if you dressed like the others who worked there, the chances were high that very few people would even notice you, let alone stop and question who you were and what you were doing there.

It was a human characteristic that Urd had taken advantage of numerous times throughout her life on the Assiah. And one that she found herself using once again, strolling through the halls of Gottlieb's Hospital with a clipboard in hand and a doctor's jacket on her shoulders. Both had been stolen from a break area whose doors were locked and barred from non-faculty members.

It was amazing what could be done when catching a door when a distracted doctor left a room.

The jacket read _Wolfe_ on the side and the clipboard she'd snagged had held a list of patients names and numbers. The goddess skimmed through the list as she walked, head bowed and looking as heavily focused as any one of the many doctors or nurses that strolled past.

There was chaos here too, though it was of a different sort from the church Urd had visited. Here the chaos rose and bubbled and fell, like a geyser spitting a fine mist of water into the open. In some areas the feeling was stronger, in others significantly weaker. Urd wasn't sure what to make of it, other than the fact the the entire hospital felt somehow stale to her, like bread that sat in the sun for too long.

The air was thick with the smell of antiseptic and something the dark woman wasn't sure she wanted to identify beneath. The doctors she passed all seemed distracted and worn-Urd had yet to see one person smiling as she passed. The patients and rooms she saw held a sickly feeling to them that made her head buzz numbingly and her stomach churn in discomfort, and perhaps the best-or was it the worst?-of the lot were the nurses. Some of them, not all but some, had a chaotic vibe to their persons that left Urd giddy and hungry for more. Those ones were easy to pick out by the way they handled their patients, some of which who actually shied away from the nurses who touched them.

The goddess ignored it all to the best of her abilities, tuning the white noise out as Urd so often did on a daily basis and finding the act more difficult than usual. _Perhaps it's because of that church._ She mused, turning down one hall and another, heading straight before turning again at another cross. _Maybe it increased my sensitivity to the waves._ The thought made her uncomfortable, and quickly the goddess dismissed it. _One thing at a time. You'll have plenty enough time to dwell on such matters once this whole fiasco with Marller is done and over with._

The dark woman paused at a new intersection, observing the two sets of numbers that had been painted on the wall before glancing down at her clipboard once more. Coming across Winola's name, she scrolled her finger across the paper and to the room number that was assigned to her._ 1206_. The silver-haired goddess took a left.

Winola Färber's room was located towards the very end of the hallway, and when Urd came across the room number the violet-eyed woman took a moment to simply peer through the small observation window. The room was small, and there wasn't much to see. On one side of the room a small cot sat, little more than a mattress resting on a steel frame bolted to the wall. A toilet sat in a corner to the far right, and a table and chair, bolted to the ground in much the same way as the bed, rested in the opposing corner. A barred window allowed sunlight above the table, and it was there Urd found her prey, sitting in the bolted chair and staring out the window.

The woman's back was turned as much as possible to the door, yet Urd had no doubt it was Winola Färber she was looking at. She'd lived through the poor woman's memories as clearly as though they were her own, and Urd felt she'd have been able to pick the former employee out with something as little as a shadow for reference.

A dark hand came to rest upon the handle of the door, and muttering under her breath the door opened with a soft click. Urd entered the small cell, her heels striking a soft beat of _tap tap tap _against the stone floor of the cell. Winola must have heard it, for the blond straightened as Urd approached, and the woman turned.

Brown eyes met violet, and Winola Färber screamed in a sudden terror. The woman bolted upright from her seat, scrambling out of the bolted chair and near-falling in her panic. Urd froze, watching as the frenzied woman darted to the other side of the small room, putting as much distance between herself and Urd as possible and even moving so far as to climb atop the toilet nestled in the corner farthest from Urd.

"Demon!" Färber shrieked. "Monster!" The woman was hysterical, a mighty change from the placid woman Urd had witnessed through the window. "What more do you want from me? You've already taken everything I have!" The blond's voice was high and shrill, and Urd could see tears beginning to fall from brown eyes in her terror.

_Damn you Marller. _It wasn't the first time a mortal had reacted in such a way to her, and Urd was certain it would be far from the last. She didn't know what people like Winola Färber saw when looking at her, those few people whose souls had been raped by demons. Only that the affects of the demon, be anything as minor as a small contract to something as large as attempting to devour the victim's soul, forced the person to see more than any mortal ever should.

In front of her, Winola continued her cries. "Leave me alone! Please, I want nothing more to do with your kind!" Her screams had faded into desperate sobs, and it was here Urd began to approach the woman, spreading her arms from her sides like a mother readying to embrace her young. "Please. No more." Winola sobbed, crouching on the toilet and burying her face in her hands. "No more..."

The goddess kneeled at the woman's side, her tall form leaving her eye-level with Winola even from where she crouched on her seat. "Please, no more." Gently Urd wrapped her arms around the huddled woman's form. "No more." The words were little more than a broken whisper now, until finally Winola didn't speak at all, simply crouched on the toilet seat and shook in Urd's arms.

Urd once more met the woman's gaze, drawn and tired and terrified. "It's over now." She said softly. "The demon is gone, and I'll make sure she can't hurt you again." Winola whimpered and pulled away, yet the goddess grasped the blond's chin firmly, forcing her gaze back to Urd. "Let it go." She ordered. "Your tired, aren't you? Your ordeal has aged you so much. Just close your eyes and let it all go away."

The dark woman leaned her head against Winola's brow and watched as slowly, the woman did as instructed, her face overcome with a look of weariness so great it hurt as her eyelids slowly slipped down over pained brown. "Good girl." The goddess felt something warm emerge from her back, yet she ignored it, running a hand instead through Winola's curly hair. There was a long streak of white in it that Urd hadn't noticed before. "The time has come for you to rest, Winola Färber." Her left hand stroking the woman's hair, Urd's right hand moved to press against Winola's chest, meeting resistance and pressing past, sliding into the woman's body. "When you awaken, you'll be born anew." The hand emerged with a small glowing wisp of light, multiple small tails rising from the little mass in shreds.

Winola Färber released a long sigh as the object was removed, and Urd drew back, using her left hand to support the blonde and watching as a peaceful expression entered her features. Carefully, she leaned the woman back against the wall, than looked down at the little ruined orb in her hand. The silver-haired woman cupped it with both hands, squeezing the ball of light in between her palms. When Urd removed her left hand once more, a small, colorless egg remained where once an orb had rested. It shined with an inner light, and Urd stared at it impassively. "Let it never be said the gods ignore the pleas of men in need." She murmured. "Sleep well, Winola Färber."

The bronze woman rose to her feet. The warmth from her back was gone, and in the light of the small cell Urd spied a white feather drifting aimlessly in the air. She looked down to her egg, clutched tightly in her palm. It felt warm, hot almost, and every now and then the goddess thought she felt something shift underneath the shell.

Lips set in a thin line, the bronze woman pocketed the small object and kneeled, scooping Winola's body off the ground. Turning, the Norn carefully maneuvered to the cot, lying the woman out on the tiny bed before departing the room. Retracing her steps down the halls, Urd hailed the first nurse she saw. "There's something wrong with the patient in room 1206." She told her. "She isn't responding to any outward stimuli-I'm afraid she may have somehow overdosed on one of her perceptions."

The nurse's eyes widened and a curse escaped the woman's lips, and before Urd could speak another word, the woman was off in a run. The silver-haired woman watched the nurse depart before calmly continuing her journey.

When she saw her men again the coat and clipboard had been discarded. Somewhere in the hospital, a schizophrenic patient was running around with a clipboard under the guise of a doctor named _Wolfe. _The men she'd brought in with her-all of them, including Wiley-were waiting for her. Wiley looked drugged and held an eerie calm to him. His buddy Yosef was no where in sight.

The goddess approached the receptionist, Urdesa Schwartz once more. "I've changed my mind." She said, producing the papers seemingly out of thin air and handing them back to the woman behind the desk. "My sister convinced me to give him a second chance."

Not waiting to listen to the receptionist's response, Urd turned away to face her men. "We're leaving." She said, moving to Wiley and grasping the man by the arm. He rose without comment and when she tugged him to the door he followed aimlessly, eyes still glazed and non-seeing with her men flanking her sides.

They departed in silence, and as they left Urd imagined she heard the shouts of the panicked and the mad, lost under the stillness of the hospital's walls.

Underneath it all, the buzz of chaos continued unabated.

"Boss?"

The dark woman turned to meet Kasper's gaze. "Load Wiley up in the back. Let him sleep off the drugs. We're making one final stop before heading back to Japan. I need to pick up some equipment."

* * *

"I still don't get it."

Belldandy took a deep breath, counting to ten before slowly releasing it in a drawn out sigh. Beside her Keiichi sat, his elbows propped up on his knees and holding his head in his hands. The man's face was drawn and tight, and whenever he spoke Keiichi grimaced, as though the use of his vocal cords pained him. "Try it again." He said. "Please." He added, catching the strained expression on her face.

The hood on his jacket was drawn on top of his head, shadowing the man's face from the sun. Belldandy didn't like the pallid look to his features, or how sometimes, when the light hit his eyes at the right angle, brown would look red and Keiichi would shy away muttering of how the sun was too bright. They hadn't gone far from Megumi's home, perhaps little more than a mile; it was no easy task traveling through a city when one was sick and the other barefoot.

They'd come to rest at a bus stop and had been there ever since, watching as first one bus came and left, followed by another and several more after that. Belldandy had stopped counting after ten. "Marller is a demon." She'd repeated those same words four times now, and Belldandy was beginning to wonder whether it was the fever's heat roasting Keiichi's mind or if her explanation was so outrageous the man was unable to wrap him brain around the concept.

Keiichi nodded. "Right, right, got that part down." He grimaced and tugged at his hood, trying to draw it further down against his face. His hands were wrapped tightly inside the sleeves of his jacket. "She's Urd's friend and she wants something from you, and is using _me_ to get it. What I don't get is _why _she's Urd's friend. And your a goddess. Can't you do some sort of hoodoo-voodoo magic to get rid of her?"

The brunette bit her lip, thinking how best to explain everything to him. "It's not as simple as that, Keiichi. You need to stop thinking in terms of us being the entities you worship so freely." She said. "Instead, think of it like this: Gods and demons as the world's superpowers, say the United States and Russia, with the lesser, lower dimensional beings acting as the lesser-strength countries."

"Now, hopefully you're up to date with world history. Think back to the Cold War that happened between those two countries-both sides were tense, and it felt as though the slightest thing might set one side off. Both sides were using clandestine and covert operations to gain a potential advantage on the other, right?"

Keiichi grunted but nodded, and Belldandy continued. "Now apply those terms to a larger basis. Apply those same conditions to the heavens and the hells. Both sides are doing everything short of a full-out war to gain an advantage over the other team. There is also the small fact of rank, which holds more power in our realm than a simple title given by your people. For us, both gods and demons alike, the higher a rank displays the more powerful deity or demon. Marller's rank is higher than mine, and to openly challenge her would be a fool's gambit."

Keiichi groaned. "But why _you? _Why attack you if she's friends with Urd?"

Belldandy's expression grew dark. "I assure you, Keiichi, there is no branch of fondness between Marller and myself." She sent him a look. "Would you allow Toshiyuki around Megumi if you knew he would only cause her trouble?"

"I wouldn't let Toshiyuki around Megumi period, Belldandy."

"And why is that?"

"Because Toshiyuki is a manwhore. The most he'd do is charm her, sleep with her, and dump her the next day." Keiichi growled. "Megumi's better then that."

Belldandy tilted her head to one side. "Yet you were still friends with him, correct? Though you wish for Megumi to have nothing to do with Toshiyuki?"

"Well, yeah but..."

Belldandy nodded. "_That_ is the kind of relationship between Urd, Marller, and myself."

Keiichi stared at her. "So you're telling me Marller is trying to fuck you?"

Belldandy stared at him in horror, her face turning beet red as she sputtered out a response. "_No!" _She cried. "How did you...why would you even-no. Just _no._" The goddess visibly shuddered, and underneath his hood Keiichi smiled weakly.

"First off, I'm sure that if forced to choose, Marller would prefer Urd over me any day-_not_ that I'm saying Marller would prefer the arms of a woman to the arms of a man." She added when Keiichi sent her a queer look. "Secondly, you must be feeling better if you can work up the nerve to tease me so." Her tone grew softer with those words, almost gentle as she spoke them.

Keiichi grunted. "I still feel like shit." He confessed. "Just not as shitty as before." The young man grimaced underneath his jacket, and for a moment Keiichi looked very small under his hood-as though he was only a shade of his formal self. "I think I'm getting used to it."

_How long will you be able to keep this up, I wonder? _Belldandy thought, a lump of guilt rising and lodging itself in her throat. _Not even half the day has passed, and yet more and more I see a dead man walking._

"Now that you've finished comparing me to a lowly succubus, have you given any more thought on that access code of yours?" An arm draped around Belldandy's shoulders, and Belldandy shrieked as a blond head stuck itself between Belldandy and Keiichi. Marller leered at the goddess, red eyes smug as Belldandy shied away from the demon. On the other side of the bench, Keiichi cursed and seemed to do much the same, scampering to the far end of the bench, only for Marller's other arm to wrap around his shoulders and force him still.

The demon's hand moved to clamp down on Belldandy's shoulder, and the goddess stiffened as Marller braced herself against the brunette, climbing over the bench to sit in-between goddess and mortal. That done, Marller's grin grew sly, and her gaze drifted over to Keiichi. "Can you believe this woman, Keiichi?" She asked, nodding her head to Belldandy. "She'd rather let you die a monster than give me something as simple as a little access code." The demon laughed. "And your people call _us_ demons."

"Marller!"

Blood-red eyes flashed, yet Marller's gaze remained on Keiichi, and Belldandy cried out when the grip on her shoulder tightened. When the goddess looked at the appendage she could see dots of red surfacing from where claw-like nails had penetrated the cloth and bit into her skin.

"Now now _Belldandy, _can't you see Keiichi and I are having a talk? It's rude to _interrupt_." The pressure on her shoulder increased in warning before relaxing, and Belldandy's shoulder throbbed angrily when Marller's grip loosened. "Unless it's your access code, I don't want to hear another word from you, girl."

"Hey. Leave her alone." Keiichi's words came out in a growl. "She doesn't have to give you anything. Stop trying to bully her." The man tore his gaze away from the demon and to the goddess. "You hear that Belldandy? Don't listen to this bitch. She's just trying to scare you into giving her what she wants."

Marller's eyes flashed. "Oh?" She asked. "Is that so? So are you saying you'd rather exist as a mindless beast, consuming the flesh of your fellow man rather than have your little girlfriend give me a six-digit code? How mind-numbingly noble of you."

Keiichi bared his teeth in something too hostile to be a smile. "First off, didn't I tell you before Belldandy and I aren't like that? Secondly, are you sure you want to do something so stupid when your buddy's around? I don't know much about Urd, but something tells me she'd be pretty fucking mad if she found out you were screwing around with Belldandy."

Belldandy's eyes widened. "Keiichi, don't-"

Marller interrupted the goddess before she could speak further. "Stop speaking lies, Boy." She hissed, and bloody eyes narrowed to slits. "I've scouted this area-the only deity here is the one right _here_." The demon turned to Belldandy, who flinched under the blond's gaze. "Isn't that right, Belldandy?"

"I...n-no, I mean, that is to say-" Belldandy stuttered out a reply, and something that sounded like a growl rumbled in Marller's throat. The goddess leaned away from the demon, and blue eyes darted to Keiichi, panicked and pleading. The man held an alien expression on his face, and as their eyes met his moved to Marller, than back to Belldandy. He mouthed something to her, and Belldandy bit her lip.

Gathering her courage, the goddess took a deep breath before looking Marller in the eyes. The red orbs seemed to bore into her own, and she fought to hold her gaze. "What I'm trying to say, Marller, is that Urd is only a phone call away." Her voice was strong and steady, and Belldandy smiled with a nicety she didn't feel at the demon. "And I'm sure you remember how..._vicious _Urd can be when angered."

She said nothing further then that, and for a long time the entire bench was silent and tense. Marller's glare was heated and cruel, and Belldandy could almost hear the gears working in her head. Finally the demon snarled and rose from the bench. "It seems I've been too nice in my dealings with you and your man, Verthandi." She growled, and Belldandy could feel the hairs rise on the back of her neck. The demon looked over her shoulder to Keiichi, and her hand clenched. A strangled cry tore from Keiichi's throat, and the man fell from the bench, curling into a tight ball of withering pain.

"Marller, stop!" Belldandy rose with a shout, and before the woman even knew what she was doing, the magic was flying from her hands. The blast of wind hit the demon square in the chest, and unprepared for it, Marller was sent hurtling backwards into the street. The blond skidded to a halt on the other side of the street, and as she rose, a horn blared in warning.

The demon turned to it's source, and Marller snarled as she met the eyes of the bus driver, large and panicked as he blared his horn again, the encroaching bus skidding to a halt that refused to come, even with the brakes no doubt flat on the floor. The vehicle began to swerve dangerously, drawing ever closer, and without hesitation, Marller lashed out. A plume of red exploded from her hand, crashing into the vehicle and slicing the bus in two before throwing the wreckage back the way it came. What was once a bus crashed into the two cars behind it, and the sky erupted into the screech of tires and the crash and scrape of metal.

The demon observed the wreckage only for a moment before turning back to the bench Belldandy and Keiichi had been at. The bench was empty of any people, and with a frown Marller's red gaze drifted to the heavens. They found Belldandy easily enough, supporting Keiichi's weight as best she could as the goddess hovered in the sky. A look of horror adorned the brunette's face, and the man she held looked little more than a giant rag doll from where he dangled in the sky.

The demon pointed at the goddess. "You have even less time now, Verthandi!" She snarled. "I won't be threatened by some mewling little deity like you. That access code will be mine before the day ends or I shall see to it personally that Keiichi Morisato is the _Rakshasa_ that devours your heart and desecrates your corpse!" And just like that, she was gone, leaving a web of disaster in her wake as her presence faded from Belldandy's senses.

The goddess bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste blood, and forcefully Belldandy averted her gaze from the crash. She turned her gaze instead towards the city rooftops. Cerulean eyes came to land on a roof bedecked like a patio, empty of customers and covered with tables and umbrellas. Carefully, Belldandy readjusted her grip around Keiichi before allowing herself to drift to the rooftop.

Her feet landed soundlessly on the light concrete, and the ground felt warm and smooth against her skin. With Keiichi's arm slung around her shoulders, Belldandy guided the man to one of the tables with an open umbrella. Little white rabbits danced with carrots on the umbrella's shell.

It wasn't until she had Keiichi leaning back in one of the chairs, safely out of the sun's reach, that Belldandy allowed herself to plop into a chair of her own with an exhausted sigh, fold her arms on the table, and bury her face in her arms with a groan. The goddess closed her eyes. On the inside of her eyelids, the scene with Marller replayed itself, and she watched again and again as the magic left her hand and Marller flew into the street. As Marller rose and the bus was destroyed.

"Bless it all!" The goddess screamed into her arms. How many people had she gotten killed because of her actions? How many innocent lives had been in that bus, in those cars behind it? If only she hadn't...but then Keiichi would have...and Marller might have-

"That fucker...really scares you...doesn't she?"

Belldandy raised her head from her arms. Keiichi eyes were squeezed shut, and she could hear him panting lightly. For a second the brunette thought she was hearing things, but then Keiichi spoke again. "I had...a bad dream." He panted, and a hand moved to clutch his forehead. Keiichi grimaced and continued. "I met...that bitch. Her-her _things_ killed Megumi...then went after you." He cracked one eye open and looked at her. A blood vessel must have ruptured in his eye thanks to Marller, for the white had been stained a bloody and irritated red. "Won't let 'em get you..." He muttered. "Promise."

The words were unexpected, and Belldandy stared at the man in surprise, unsure of how to respond. "How do you feel?" She asked finally, at a loss of anything else to say yet already knowing the answer.

Something that sounded like a snort came from Keiichi. "Like my...insides...are being...ripped to shreds." He said, seeming to pause between every word to draw a fresh breath. The bloody eye closed once more.

The goddess winced. "I'm sorry."

This time, both eyes opened, and despite herself Belldandy flinched under the red that had taken over both eyes. "I'm sorry." she repeated, and when Keiichi made no effort to speak, Belldandy continued. "This is wrong. You shouldn't be suffering because of me." The goddess drew her hands into her lap, where they clenched together in tight fists. "I should be fighting Marller off, not acting craven and running off every time she appears. You should have never been involved, and I should have found a way to prevent just such an incident from ever happening."

Keiichi grunted at her words, yet for the life of her Belldandy couldn't tell if it was for or against her words. The woman wasn't sure she wanted to know. The goddess set her jaw. "I've had enough of Marller toying with me." She paused. "_And_ you. Us. I'm going to end this." The Norn rose from her seat. "I'll be right back. I'll see if I can't get you some water. Why don't you try and rest while I'm gone?"

A sigh escaped from Keiichi's lips, and Belldandy could tell her suggestion was unnecessary. The man was already exhausted. With the mention of rest, whatever fight he'd held against his exhaustion was lost as Keiichi surrendered, and blood-shot eyes closed once again. When Belldandy silently slipped towards the door leading down from the roof, the rooftop was silent of all but Keiichi's haggard breathing.

She looked over her shoulder one last time at the man, and then was off, slipping inside and taking the stairs down two at a time. Her footfalls were as silent as a ghost, and the metal steps were cold against her bare feet. _I need to get to a phone._ Urd's number arose once more in her mind. _I need Urd's advice. She'll know what to do. _Mentally, Belldandy berated herself for her initial hesitation. _Marller has known you since you were but a child and she's taking advantage of you. She's playing you like a fiddle, relying on your old fears of revealing her acts against you to Urd._

The goddess paused near a sign with a large five painted on it, than looked over the stairway and to the many steps below. Belldandy bit her lip. _I don't want to leave Keiichi along any longer then necessary. _The staircase spiraled downwards against the wall, and the bottom floor still looked a long way off. "Almighty above, the Assiah has made me mad." She muttered, climbing over the steel hand rail and allowing herself to plummet to the ground below.

The sense of falling was as exhilarating as it was terrifying, and Belldandy bit back a scream as the air whistled in her ears. A sense of vertigo overwhelmed her as the ground rushed towards her, and the goddess hit the ground hard, landing on her feet before loosing her balance and falling to her rump. "That was _not_ fun!" Belldandy gasped, shakily climbing to her feet once more and making her way to the door. A one was painted on a sign beside the door, and Belldandy stumbled through it. "I pray to the Almighty that is the last time I ever do something so rash and foolish." She mumbled, her heart having yet to calm from her leap of fate.

Somehow, she doubted He'd grant her wish.

The hallway of the floor beyond the door was carpeted, and Belldandy's feet almost sang with glee at the feel of the soft material underfoot. It would have been pleasant to look at, too, had the carpet not been such an sickeningly sweet shade of red. The walls were no better; a bright shade of pink that bordered on magenta, the walls almost hurt to look at, and so Belldandy kept her head bowed, preferring to look at the hideous carpet over the atrocious walls.

Where on Earth was she?

The goddess spied a line of vending machines resting along one side of the hallway from her peripheral vision, and recalling her earlier words to Keiichi, the goddess made her way towards them. She approached the first one, thankfully black, the only red or pink being of the hearts that had been painted on it's side.

Belldandy peered through the glass, and dark brows furrowed together in confusion as she read off the names of some of the items inside. "Anal beads? Vibrator 3000? Dear lord...is that a _penis_? What in the Almighty's name is a butt plug?" The vending machines seemed to have everything but the water she'd been hoping for, and so, more than a little disturbed over her findings, the goddess moved to the next one, finding it held a variety of little boxes advertising condoms- _CondomMan's studded condoms-make her scream-_with still no water.

"What does that even mean, ultra ribbed?" Belldandy wondered aloud before sighing. "I'll have to ask Urd later on."

The third vending machine had items she was more familiar with, filled with little stuffed animals dressed as nurses and officers and schoolgirls, as well as various boxes of chocolate, and the final one actually had the water she was looking for. Belldandy didn't have any money on her, however she considered the circumstance an emergency, and with a quick word to the spirit residing in the machine, the spiral metal twirled and as the water bottle fell the goddess bent to recover it. The wrapper was covered in red hearts and female silhouettes blowing kisses. Belldandy did her best to ignore it.

"Now for a phone." The goddess lightly jogged further down the hall, eventually coming to the front desk of the building. The receptionist behind the desk had sleazy eyes and greasy hair, and he made no efforts to hide his ogling of her chest.

Feeling very much like the man was undressing her with his eyes alone, Belldandy approached the receptionist, crossing her arms over her chest uncomfortably. "Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to have a phone I could use, would you?"

The receptionist's eyes never left her chest. "Got one behind the desk for you, if you like." He said suggestively. "Why don't you come on back here and I'll show it to you?" The man gestured Belldandy over to the desk, and after a moment's hesitation, she walked around the desk to his side. A telephone, fire engine red and as ugly as the rest of the building's interior, rested at the man's elbow. "I'll even let you use if for free, on one exception."

Belldandy's gaze became weary. "And what is that?"

"That you sit in my lap."

Belldandy stared at the receptionist long and hard, and the man leaned back, kicking his legs on the table and blocking her from the phone. "How 'bout it, Sweetheart?" The receptionist patted his thigh, and Belldandy could almost smell the lust from where she stood.

A look of disgust slid across Belldandy's face at the sight, yet otherwise the woman did nothing. The goddess considered him for a moment, eyes darting between the receptionist and the phone before finally sighing. "I don't have time for this." She growled, her hand twitching in annoyance, and the man yelped as his chair suddenly gave out from under him, sending the receptionist to the ground with a thud. There was no carpet here, only a tiled white floor that looked in need of a good cleaning, and when he fell the man's head cracked loudly against the floor.

As he moaned, Belldandy stepped over the receptionist and reached for the phone, picking it up by the receiver and punching in Urd's number. The phone picked up on the second ring. "Who is this?" A voice barked in angry Russian, loud and male and most definitely _not_ Urd.

Fearing she'd somehow dialed the wrong number, Belldandy replied, "This is Verthandi." After a moment's consideration, she added, "Urd's sister."

The man on the other end spoke away from the telephone, and Belldandy could only catch bits and snippets of muffled voices, some male, others female. When the voice on the other end spoke once more, Belldandy was revealed to hear Urd's voice on the other line. "Dee! Where the hell are you? I've been calling you for hours!"

Belldandy winced and pulled the receiver from her ear. She could still clearly hear Urd's voice. "I called the shrine twenty times without a response, and when I gave up on that and called Megumi, she claimed you'd brought Keiichi over and then ran off with him when she left to get some medicine! The next thing I know, I'm getting a phone call from some goddamned 'love hotel' in Japan, an lo and behold, it's my little sister on the line!"

There was a long pause, and Belldandy brought her ear back to the phone. "-Be mighty pissed if I find out you ran off to go fuck Keiichi after scaring me through hell and high water."

Belldandy yanked the phone from her ear as though burned and stared at the receiver in horror. Cerulean eyes narrowed. Of all the _nerve_...

"Now you listen here, sister of mine." Belldandy hissed. "I'll have you know that I have been chased throughout all of Nekomi since the sun rose over the horizon because _your _little demon-friend decided I made an appealing target! In the past several hours, I have destroyed the roof of my shrine, endangered Keiichi's life, been molested by a monster-rat, inadvertently killed the lives of the Almighty _knows_ how many people, and have lost my sanity to the point where I'm leaping off staircases in a hideous brothel trying to get in contact with you and ask for your advise!"

The goddess paused, panting. "And you...and _you _have the nerve to accuse _me _of spreading my legs like a common harlot for a man I can barely tolerate! What on the Almighty's green earth would make you think I would willingly set foot in such a hellish nightmare? I'm trying to escape Marller!"

"Why the fuck do you think I'm ca-" Abruptly, the voice on the other end cut off, and for a moment Belldandy wondered if they somehow had lost the connection. When Urd spoke again, however, the anger was gone. "Wait...you know already?"

"_Yes!"_ Belldandy exploded. "Do you think I've gone out of my way to avoid your calls? That I enjoy appearing out of nowhere at Megumi's door, baring an ill Keiichi only to vanish once more without a trace with her trusting me to his care?" Her voice cracked. "That I would...that I...I..." A weight settled itself in her throat, and Belldandy slammed her hand down on the countertop. "Urd, I...I can't do this anymore. I don't know what to do." The woman's voice trembled, and once more her hand collided with the wood of the table, this time leaving a sizable welt in the polished surface. "She's done something to Keiichi, Urd, and I don't know how to fix it! She wants my access code to Yggdrasil, and you _know_ what will happen if I give her that! I just...I...What should I do Urd? How do I stop her?" She was blubbering like a fool, she realized , and she could feel that familiar rise of hysteria at the back of her throat like an old friend. It was just so _much._

"Dee? Dee, calm down. _Verthandi_." Urd snapped. "Stay with me here. You're going to be fine, alright? I'm on my way back to Japan as we speak, but it'll still be a while before I'm back in country. Now, I want you to start from the beginning. Tell me everything that's happened since Marller first appeared."

The goddess nodded, forgetting for a brief moment that Urd couldn't see her through the phone and starting with Keiichi's rude awakening. By the time the woman was finished, she was panting, and it felt to Belldandy as though a great weight had been lifted off her chest.

On the other end of the line, Urd sighed. "A bus and two cars...Marller never was one to learn the definition of 'subtle'." Belldandy could almost see her sister shaking her head in dismay. "Shit. And to think she's already growing so reckless...Alright Dee, listen up. I can't do much from where I'm at right now, but at least I can give you some advice. If what you said is true, than Marller is getting more and more restless each time you manage to escape her. True, she may be letting you go, but each time is only adding to her irritation, and you know just as well as I do that woman has a temper as short as a bull's. That makes her dangerous. She's going to care less and less about what she does in the open and who's around to witness it or become victim."

"So here's the first thing you need to do. You need to grab Keiichi and move to someplace isolated. If Keiichi is Marller's eyes, than Marller is going to find you regardless of where you go or who you go to. The less people around, the less innocents she can victimize." Urd's tone dropped several degrees at the mention of 'victimize', and Belldandy caught herself shivering. She couldn't say why.

Ignorant of Belldandy's own feelings on the matter, Urd continued regardless. "-Because I can guaran-fucking-tee that Marller will be able to raise a hell like none other faster that it would take a Valkyrie unit to deploy Assiah-side. Do you understand? Get out of that damned brothel or love hotel or whatever, find someplace abandoned, and bunker down as best you can until I can get to you."

"Understood." So it was inevitable. She was going to have to fight regardless of the situation. The knowledge made her bite her lip hard enough to taste blood.

"And have a little faith in yourself, Dee." These words came softer. "I know what your capable of doing. I've seen it myself. Stay strong, Verthandi, and hold the same confidence in yourself that you hold in me. You can do it." Then came the dial tone before Belldandy could sputter out a response, and Belldandy let the receiver fall from her fingers.

The red plastic hit the desk with a loud thump, and as though jostling the woman from a trance, Belldandy screamed, slamming both hands on the desk hard enough to chip the varnished wood. Trembling, she held herself up, gritting her teeth and watching through burning eyes as the table was dotted with her tears.

* * *

Her return to the rooftop was without incident, though Belldandy felt old and worn by the time she opened the door to the familiar rabbit umbrella's once more. Carefully, the brunette navigated around tables and chairs, and the goddess frowned when she finally came across the table she recognized as her's. The goddess approached Keiichi's chair. The young man was no where to be found.

"Keiichi?" The goddess scanned the surrounding area for the young man, yet there was no sign of the mechanic. Where was he? Had he fallen somewhere? The goddess knelt by Keiichi's chair, scanning the ground and the areas underneath the many tables for the man. Nothing, not even a shadow moved that would have helped Belldandy locate her comrade. "Keiichi! Where are you?" The goddess peered over the tables, yet only more of the same greeted her eyes.

There was a crash from behind her, and with a start the goddess whirled around, finding one of the chairs had been overturned. "Keiichi!" Had he somehow slipped past her when she'd emerged from the staircase? What was he doing? Weaving around the various chairs and tables, the goddess made her way towards the chair. Again, no sign of Keiichi, and the woman's frown only deepened.

"Keiichi Morisato, I'll have you know I'm in no mood for games!" She announced to the wind, a lump of unease rising in her stomach as the goddess slowly circled the chair, searching once more for any signs of movement. If Keiichi heard her, the man made no move to respond. "Almighty above, where are you?" She muttered.

A flash of something dark appeared in the corner of her eye, and Belldandy wheeled to face it, racing once more between the many chairs and tables to it's source. It was Keiichi's jacket, slung upon a chair and dangling gently in the breeze. "What in the world?" The goddess picked the jacket up from where it hung. The inside was still warm with Keiichi's body heat.

Brows a light brown furrowed together in confusion, and clutching the jacket tightly in both hands, the goddess backed away from the chair. One of the umbrella poles squeaked anxiously, and with a start Belldandy wheeled to face it. The umbrella it was connected to circled lightly in the breeze. "Just an umbrella." She stated, feeling her heart beat quicken at the small start. "Just an umbrella." She looked away from it, and instead found herself staring at Keiichi Morisato, crouching on one of the tables.

The woman gasped in surprise, and when her eyes met his, Keiichi leaped from his resting place, a snarl on his lips that turned his face ugly. The man collided into Belldandy before the goddess even had time to realize what Keiichi was doing, and she screamed the two of them went down. Heated blood-shot eyes and an angry sneer twisted Keiichi's features into the mask of a demon, and the man gnashed his teeth in Belldandy's face, sending spittle raining down upon her.

With a grimace, the woman shoved a hand beneath the man's chin, forcing Keiichi's snapping jaws up and away from her face. One of Keiichi's hands was pinning Belldandy's arm to the ground, and the other squeezed painfully around her neck. It was hard for the goddess to breath, and Belldandy wheezed pitifully as the hand only grew tighter.

A knee collided into Keiichi's crotch, and insane or not, the act still hurt. Keiichi's mouth parted in a high whine of pain and the grip around Belldandy's neck loosened dramatically. Taking full advantage of the weakness, Belldandy rolled, forcing Keiichi with her until they found themselves reversed; Keiichi on bottom with Belldandy tearing herself from his grasp on top. The woman straightened on top the student coughing, and underneath her Keiichi moaned.

Belldandy readjusted her position to pin Keiichi's arms to his side, and she settled her weight on his chest. "Keiichi, what in the Almighty's name has gotten into you?" Belldandy almost screamed the words in the man's face. Keiichi snarled in response, his neck thrusting forward and jaw snapping at her face as he tried to bite her.

Belldandy headbutted him.

Hard.

There was a loud _crack_ as their heads collided with one another, and with a grunt, Keiichi's head reeled back onto the concrete. Belldandy glared at the man. "Snap out of it!" She ordered, bright blue eyes flashing with anger. "Are you to tell me your going to allow yourself to become a demon's pawn?" Beneath her, Keiichi gave no response. "Your stronger then that, Keiichi. You're _better _then that. I know you are."

"...Bright..." Keiichi's eyes were closed and the word was little more than a sigh, yet none the less Belldandy heard it. "...Bright...bitch..."

Belldandy scowled. "Even under an evil metamorphosis, you still manage some way to insult me." She grumbled. Beneath her, something that sounded suspiciously like a snicker escaped Keiichi's throat.

Before the brunette could investigate more, however, Keiichi spoke again. "Off."

The goddess raised an eyebrow. "And allow you to recreate the morning's awakenings once more?" She asked. "I think not."

Keiichi groaned and one bloody eye cracked open. It snapped shut as soon as it looked at her. "Too...fucking...bright..." The man turned his face away from her, and for the first time Belldandy took a moment to regard where they were. The clouds had parted enough to let a few thin trickles of sunshine out into the world. Keiichi's attack had left them exposed to that sunlight, and while the beams felt warm and gentle against her bare flesh, Belldandy could see where they were causing Keiichi's skin to redden painfully.

"Oh..._oh..._I see." The woman hesitated for only a moment. "If I let you up, can I be sure that you won't assault me again?"

Keiichi grunted and Belldandy sighed. "I'm going to assume that is a 'yes'." Carefully she removed herself from Keiichi, warily removing her hands from his arms. "But I'll have you know, if I so much as see you looking at me wrong, I'll take one of those table poles and knock you out so fast you'll think it was lightning that struck you." She warned as Keiichi rolled onto his stomach and picked himself up.

Keiichi didn't respond. Didn't even move to retrieve his jacket, simply moved to the nearest table and sat on top of it, rubbing his face gingerly. Belldandy knelt to grab the jacket for him, and when she rose the goddess offered it to the man.

Keiichi looked away as she approached, yet none the less snatched the jacket from her hands and carefully put it back on. _He's ashamed._ She thought. _He knows he went out of control, that he could have hurt me._ Belldandy rubbed her throat carefully. It flared at her touch, and the goddess was certain she'd have a bruise to accompany the pain come the new morning. "If it makes you feel any better, it wasn't your fault." She said. "Marller must have sped the metamorphosis process when she spoke with us last. I'm not angry or upset that you attacked me."

The goddess rested a hand on Keiichi's shoulder. He flinched at her touch. "Don't-" He started, but Belldandy cut him off.

"There's nothing for you to be ashamed of, Keiichi." The hand on his shoulder moved to his chin, and gently, Belldandy guided it towards herself once more. "Look at me Keiichi, I-"

The man once more tore his his gaze from Belldandy, and this time a hiss of pain accompanied it. The man covered his eyes with a hand and grit his teeth, and Belldandy knew then that whatever pained him went beyond simple shame. "Stop. Just...stop." He ground out. "You...hurt. Too bright."

"I'm hurting you?" The goddess echoed. "What are you saying? That I'm so bright I hurt?" Keiichi nodded with a grunt, and Belldandy frowned. Marller's words from earlier echoed in her mind. _You have even less time now..._Curse that demon, was this what she meant? Belldandy chewed on her lip in thought. How was she supposed to help Keiichi if the man literally couldn't look at her? _Have Marller undo the curse._ A voice whispered in her mind. _You too?_ She asked it._ Is the Almighty Himself forcing me to confront Marller? It sure feels as though everything in this realm is..._

"Keiichi, can you walk without my assistance?" She asked, and when the man hopped down from the table and walked a few steps, managing to only slightly sway from side to side, Belldandy continued. "This has gone on long enough. I can't help you like you are right now and the only other option is Marller. I'm going to end this curse she's placed on your head, but I'll need your help doing it. Will you trust me?"

The hood of his jacket had been pulled back over Keiichi's head, yet still she recognized his nod. "Then let's go. We can exit the building through the door, and after that..." She told him her plan, and Keiichi almost turned back to look at her, obviously displeased with her idea. "Can you think of anything better?"

Keiichi's shoulders sagged and the man sulked for a moment, bringing a hand to his face and shaking his head in disapproval. "Stupid." He muttered. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." Yet still he moved towards the door, and Belldandy knew he'd go on with her plan.

They left the rooftop with Keiichi leading and Belldandy trailing close behind.

* * *

Gravel crunched underfoot as Urd exited the vehicle. The car was smaller then the beast of a machine she'd used in Europe; black and small and speedy rather than large enough to fit six or more people. The silver-haired woman had given Jasper the bigger car, along with Wiley, Lutz, the group's travel bags, and the equipment they'd removed from one of her storage units back in the city.

Urd took a deep breath. The air smelled salty and cool. Overhead, a gull croaked a greeting and the goddess could hear the sigh of the coastline as waves crashed into the beach. The sun, when not obscured by clouds, beat high over her head, well past noon and reaching the heat of the day. After the cold mountains of Europe, the heat was a welcome change, and for a moment Urd closed her eyes and merely basked in the warmth.

The goddess wore a violet dress a few shades darker than her eyes. A thin, lacy black top rested open above it and several silver chains wrapped themselves around her neck. A pair of black stilettos and a metal-ringed belt completed the look, and though the gravel made the heels dangerous, Urd navigated the loose ground in such a manner that she seemed to float.

Two more slams of car doors accompanied her own as Kasper and Kloshkin exited the vehicle, and the goddess opened her eyes once more and lazily allowed violet eyes to drift to her companions. Kloshkin looked as intimidating as ever, wearing a black buttoned duster that concealed his body. The man wore the jacket in one size larger than his actual body, and the extra room led to an easy concealment of what could have been anything. His gaze met her's, and Urd nodded in acknowledgment.

Kasper, by comparison, was dressed in a gray blazer with a white shirt underneath. A light-blue tie added the look of a business man, and the phone at his ear only added to the illusion. As he approached Urd, the pale man finished his conversation with the person on the other line before hanging up and pocketing the cell. "Lutz said they've arrived at the hotel, Boss." He said, leaning casually against the side of the car. "They should be checking in and moving all the luggage to the rooms right now."

Urd nodded. "And he got the hotel I wanted, right? With a room that had a good view of the coastline? You know I hate staying in a room where everything is blocked by city buildings." The woman scowled as Urd glanced at the man. "And stop leaning on the car. I didn't buy that suit for you to get it dirty."

"But the car isn't even dirty!" Urd sent Kasper a warning glare and the man rolled his eyes. "All right, all right, fine." He removed himself from the car. "Lutz got the room you were asking about. He mentioned something about suites on the higher floors, so we all should be sleeping like kings tonight."

Urd smiled. "That'll be good." She stretched her arms over her head. "Jets make shitty beds, even if their seats are comfy as hell. And after today, all I'm going to want to do is curl into a little ball and go to sleep."

"Do you want any company?"

"Not from the men who work for me."

They were in a shipyard. With nearly all the fishing boats out at sea so late in the day, the docks were almost deserted. Only one or two ships were in port, those few that needed repairs or had come back early with a good haul. Not far from the port, a pier stretched into the ocean, wooden in origin and lined with vendors and restaurants. If Urd looked carefully, she could see the curved lines of fishing poles stretched out along the coast, propped against the metal railing while their owners sat on benches or self-made seats of ice coolers. Further out, the goddess spied the silhouettes of some of the boats that no doubt made their rest in the very port she stood in: old rusted fishing boats with three-man crews, newer, gleaming tourist ships sailing out around the pier, no doubt pointing out one school of fish or a pod of seals, even sport boats, their owners rich and fortunate enough to own one, out speeding merrily against the bumps of the ocean.

The goddess took a deep breath once more, taking in the peace of the small dock, the undercurrent of chaos that resided in the area small and wilted, consisting more of nature's fury in a storm than anything man made. It was a refreshing change of pace. "Alright boys, time to take your places." She looked at Kloshkin and Kasper from the corner of one violet eye, and a corner of her mouth curled up in a smirk. "Go up to the pier and play 'tourist'. By some knick knacks, eat some ice cream, take pictures with the locals, whatever." The goddess reached into her pocket and withdrew a camera, handing it over to Kloshkin. "Just keep your eye on this port. You're going to need to act if it looks like I'm getting in too much over my head."

Kasper's grin was encouraging. "Aw, come on Boss. You know you never get into something you can't handle." He patted her shoulder reassuringly. "But even if the shit _does_ hit the fan this time, you know we'll be there before you can even blink."

Urd smiled thinly. "One can never be too careful in our line of work." She said, her eyes growing distant for a moment as they focused on something beyond Kasper's head. The goddess blinked and her gaze once more turned to Kasper. "Alright. I'm expecting my old friend any minute now. Time for you boys to go." Her hands waved in a shooing motion.

Kasper smirked, taking a few steps towards the pier before turning and looking over his shoulder at Urd. "You want anything?"

"Takoyaki on a stick."

"What?"

"Just look for anything with an octopus on it."

Kasper made a face. "Boss, that's nasty."

"Coming from a man who eats haggis on a regular basis. Now go before I ask for something that'll _really_ make your stomach roll."

Kasper raised his hands in surrender and turned to walk off, and after a moment, Kloshkin followed as well. When it reached the point where she could see them traveling onto the pier, Urd moved to lean back against the car herself. Crossing her hands over her chest, the woman's eyes drifted to the sky. Urd waited, readjusting the little microphone that rested at her ear and lightly touching it. Kasper's voice sang clearly in her ear, as though the man had never left, and as it fell away another voice replaced it. Lutz was muttering to himself and she could hear Wiley curse violently over something.

The goddess nodded. All that was needed was their their star player now. Urd removed her hand from the small machine and stretched. A shower at the old motel a continent ago had done wonders for her aching body, and with a new change of clothes Urd felt like a new woman. _I can't wait to go to that hotel and sleep._ She thought, letting her arms drop down to her side once more. _Just need to finish my business with Marller, and I can call it a day._

As she'd predicted, Urd didn't need to wait long for Marller to appear. Urd's magical signature was more than strong enough to attract the attention of even the most dimwitted of spirits, and it was only a matter of Marller locating where she was and traveling to her position before the woman appeared. The demon stepped out from behind one of the few boats left in port, and with her hands shoved deep into her pockets Marller strolled towards the goddess.

The demon's red eyes seemed to light up in something akin to happiness when their eyes met, and a large smile spread across Marller's face, fangs and all. "Well I'll be blessed." The demon announced. "Urd. It really _is_ you." A sharp bark of laughter escaped Marller's throat and the demon removed her hands from her pockets. "I'd heard rumors you were around, but I'd never thought..." The demon trailed off and offered a hand to Urd. When Urd took it, she found herself pulled into a tight embrace, and despite her own feelings on the matter, Urd felt herself smile and laugh and return the hug as well, the events of the day leaving her mind if only for a moment.

"Gods above and demons below, it's been too long Urd." The embrace ended and Marller held Urd at arm's length, both hands resting on Urd's shoulders as she looked the goddess up and down. "I haven't seen you since..." The blond shook her head, a rueful smile on her face as she let her arms fall to her sides once more.

"Since the _Roanok__e _incident, I know." Urd nodded her head, a matching smile as large as Marller's on her face. It _had_ been a long time, and Urd was surprised at her own joy with the reunion. She'd actually missed the demon in the years that had passed since last they spoke, and right at that moment nothing seemed like a better idea than catching up on the times with her old colleague.

_Please...Make it stop..._Winola Färber's final words rang loud and clear in Urd's mind, and the momentary glee vanished instantly. The goddess' smile dimmed as Urd returned to leaning against the car. Marller joined her. "So what are you doing on the Assiah?" Urd prodded. "Don't tell me things are getting so bad in your neck of the woods that they're sending _you_ out as a field agent."

Marller laughed raucously, as though Urd had made the funniest joke in the world. "No, no that's hardly the case." She said with a shake of her head. "In fact, things are better down there now then ever." She sent a side-long glance to Urd, slit red eyes sly. "It's a good time to be a demon."

Urd snorted. "What, are you guys preparing for the apocalypse?" She asked in jest. "We haven't even seen _Ragnarok_ yet. Think I could have a little warning before that pile of shit hits the fan? I'd rather not get stuck playing referee on a game that has no rules."

Marller chuckled once more and shook her head. "If there's word of anything like that going on, I've been the last to be informed." She said casually. "Nah, the only reason I'm on this realm is officially business."

"Oh? And that business would be?"

Marller crossed her arms and shook her head. "Nope. Sorry Urd, but it's a need to know basis, and I was informed before I left that there is no one person in this realm that has a need to know."

Urd snapped her fingers. "Damn. So close."

"Caught you red-handed, didn't I?" Marller asked in amusement.

Urd raised her hands to the demon, the palms facing out. "Guilty as charged." She sighed. "Well, fine. If you won't tell me that, will you at least tell me how you got here? Last I heard, demon-kin still needed a catalyst of some sort to move between the Gehenna realm and the Assiah. Did something change?" When Marller sent her a wary look, Urd raised one hand. "Promise not to tell. You have my honor as a goddess."

The fanged woman snorted. "Fine. No, nothing's changed. We still need those damned catalysts thanks to you _deities. _It's just a matter of finding ways to more easily force a human to come across something that would be a good catalyst."

"So how'd you do it _this_ time?"

The blond shrugged. "You'd be surprised at some of demon worshiping cults on this plane. A little push in the right direction, some well placed dreams and meetings, and it's easy to walk on this plane without any real restrictions."

Urd gave a dry laugh. "And that's why you're a demon first-class, am I right? You manage to find solutions to problems no one else would even dream of."

Marller hummed in a tone that neither agreed nor disagreed with what Urd said, and as the goddess fell silent once more, the demon continued. "Give a man a dream and a little encouragement and see if he doesn't act on it, Urd. Before you know it, he'll be searching for like-minded people, trying to gain power and discovering ways to obtain just that. Next thing you know, they're searching for a vessel with enough negative karma to act as a catalyst, and after that..."

The demon shrugged. "Here I am."

Urd nodded. "Here you are indeed." The goddess murmured. _Make it stop... _"So who was this unfortunate soul that acted as your catalyst?" She asked, tipping her head to one side in curiosity. "This must have been some miserable wretch to have worked as a catalyst for a _Fortuna _demon such as yourself."

The demon narrowed her eyes at Urd in suspicion, and Urd returned the look evenly. "A woman." Marller replied. "From the west. From what I read of her profile, the karma from her previous life was bad enough to haunt her into the next. It was even dictated that she be born into the world underneath an unlucky star to help rid her of her karma, so that in the life following, she might be born anew, fresh and whole."

When Urd said nothing in response, a growl emerged from Marller's throat. "Don't you dare, Urd." She warned. "What I did was well within the boundaries of demonic _and _divine law. I have done nothing wrong."

Yet if Urd heard the demon, the bronze woman gave no sign. _An unlucky star. Fuck, she was just like __Keiichi. _The goddess bit the inside of her lip hard enough to taste blood, and her hands clenched in rage. _Negative karma...bad karma...bad luck. Fuck!_

Marller was a _Fortuna_ demon, a demon that sustained itself on the negative karma or bad luck that followed a person throughout their life. Oftentimes, if a person's previous life had been filled with sins and wrongdoings, it was not uncommon for such ill will to follow them into their next life. There the actions of their past life developed in the form of a negative karma that followed them throughout their life until they had atoned for their sins. Normally, such people were left alone by the heavens or the hells, them having created their own personal hell to suffer through and atone without the need for either side to intervene.

Yet occasionally, the karma was so bad that a _Fortuna_ demon found it's way into that person's midst, consuming the negative karma of the victim and doubling the person's ill fortune. Oftentimes the increase of bad luck lead to the person's death. Those who survived, and oftentimes, those who did not, were discovered as having gone through so much ill fortune because of the demon that the negative karma had wiped itself from the victim's slate, and they were viewed in a positive light once more.

It was in such a way that neither divine nor damned could find fault with such a system, and in times long past laws had been written involving just such a predicament and what was and wasn't allowed should it ever occur. Marller, it seemed, had taken advantage of just such a law, and old and stale though it was, the law still held weight.

All of this went through Urd's mind in what was slowly becoming an uneasy silence between goddess and demon. Finally Urd spoke once more. "What was her name?"

Her voice was soft, and it took Marller a moment to realize the silver-haired woman had said anything at all. "Wait, what? Why do you care?"

"Just tell me."

The demon seemed to think on the wisdom of telling Urd the woman's name, glancing to her companion and to the gravel underfoot several times, chewing her lip thoughtfully.

"No."

That was Marller's first mistake, as Urd's eyes flashed in rage and a fist launched itself at the demon. It connected with Marller's throat before the demon could even react, and the blond fell choking and gagging to her knees, clutching her throat in pain. That same fist then entwined itself deep in the fallen woman's blond hair, and grabbing a fist full of hair the goddess dragged Marller away from the car, and Urd shoved the demon with enough force to send the blond into a tumbling roll several feet away from the bronze woman.

"Urd-" Marller coughed, stumbling to her feet and gasping for breath. "Wha-what was that for?" She demanded, hands planted on her knees as the fanged woman fought to take huge gulps of air. The demon looked at Urd from underneath light brows. "This-this is about Verthandi, isn't it?" She asked, and the demon wiped her mouth off with a sleeve, a small smirk displaying on her face. Another series of coughs racked her body, harsh and ragged. "N-never thought your sister would actually rat me out." She muttered.

It proved to be Marller's second mistake. Urd's smile held little warmth as she regarded the demon before her. _Make it stop..._ "Verthandi?" She asked, taking a step towards the blond. "This has nothing to do with my sister, Marller. As much as I love her, she can't use me as a shield whenever a demon like you comes around to harass her. You're probably one of the best things that happened to her since-"

The goddess stopped abruptly, shaking her head. "Winola Färber. _That_ is who this is about."

The demon straightened. "What?"

"You heard me. Winola Färber, an employee of mine who works overseas. I'd hired her not a week before your little cult decided she'd make a nice catalyst for you." Urd's voice was cool and her expression gave nothing away.

"One of your-"

"One of my employees, yes. One of my _people,_ Marller." Violet eyes narrowed into slits. "I will not tolerate anyone, not even the Almighty himself, to fuck around with the people I've placed under my wing." Urd turned and walked back towards the car, and warily Marller watched her, small red sparks dancing across the demon's fingers as she waited for Urd's next move. "And the ones who do..."

The goddess twirled around faster than Marller could follow, and the demon didn't even have time to raise her hands in defense as Urd pointed a finger at the demon and yelled _"BAM!"_

Something struck the demon's shoulder hard, and Marller didn't hold back the howl of pain that accompanied it as she fell to the ground. The fanged woman clutched her shoulder, writhing and shrieking in pain, and a portion of the leather that covered her shoulder began to darken as blood began to soak through.

The cries sounded much like a wounded and dieing animal, and for a second Urd stared impassively at the demon, waiting for the demon's twistings and turnings and screams to fade a bit before approaching. A wounded tiger was still a tiger, after all.

Finally, after a time, Marller's screams and flailings faded, replaced with fast, short breaths as the goddess approached. Marller had rolled onto her uninjured side in an effort to ease the pain in her shoulder, and the hand that still clutched the wound had been stained a bright red. The entire shoulder of her coat had darkened and Urd could see where the blood trickled from Marller's hand to drip into the gravel below.

At Urd's approach, Marller hissed, and a leg coiled against the demon's body threateningly. "Urd." She growled out. "What the hell did you do to me? That was no spell of yours." Urd's magic would have cauterized the wound in the same instant it had damaged the demon. Yet still the blood flowed freely from her shoulder and dropped to the gravel beneath. _Drip, drip, drip._

The goddess responded with a raised eyebrow, eying the coiled leg thoughtfully. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." She advised. "Not unless you want your leg shot off after kicking me."

"You shot me?" Marller's eyes were the size of saucer plates, and the demon stared at Urd in horror. "You _shot_ me!"

"No. One of my _employees_ shot you." Urd corrected. "And you should consider yourself lucky he's such a sharp shooter. It could have just as easily been your head." The silver-haired woman wandered over to examine Marller's shoulder. "And with a piercing round, too. The bullet went straight through your shoulder rather than fragmenting inside your body." The goddess caught sight of one red eye staring up at her, and Urd smiled. "That was a special bullet, Marller, made from a good many horseshoes found nailed over doors and barns. If it had lodged itself in your shoulder rather than piercing through, you'd be a great deal of trouble right about now."

Marller gaped at her. "You made-" Her voice froze, and the demon paused, visibly swallowing before trying again. "Y-you made a bullet from lucky horseshoes? A lucky bullet?" The demon's voice rose high enough to crack, and Urd reveled in the fear dawning in the blond's eyes.

"Marller, I didn't make one bullet. I've made _hundreds._ Horseshoes, charms, even a rabbit's foot can be used to create a coating for a bullet. It's just a matter of time." Urd's expression was not kind. "And believe me, for as long as I've been in this realm, I've had nothing _but_ time to develop these beauties."

"You could have killed me!" Marller snarled, for a moment looking as though she might yet try to attack Urd.

Yet the goddess remained unconcerned. "I still might, if you don't shut your mouth, Marller." She said, cool and calm and collected, as though she were discussing something as casual as the weather with the demon rather than the fanged woman's life. "The next round will be a hollow point." She warned. "And I can guarantee, through the heart or through the head, fuck, even a bad shot into the torso, you won't survive it."

Urd kneeled down next to Marller. "You ever seen a person with radiation poisoning?" Her voice was soft, yet there was something in her tone, something that almost sounded..._excited_, that sent a chill down the demon's spine. "That's how I imagine it. Your teeth and your hair would fall out, you'd start vomiting blood, maybe even your skin would start to melt off your bones." The goddess shrugged. "Of course, I've never actually seen it happen-not yet anyways-but you never know. I might yet still get the chance."

The goddess fell silent then, and looked long and hard at the demon, her expression once more impassive and giving nothing to the thoughts swirling in her mind. She watched her wounded companion's face, watching and fear turned to rage turned to hate and then to realization.

"You want something from me." She hissed. "What is it?"

Urd once more rose to her feet, stretching mightily as she did so. "First off, I want your word that you won't touch any other person under my wing, human or not, for as long as I'm down here. I'll even start marking them so you know who not to touch. Secondly, I want you to release whatever curse you placed on Keiichi Morisato's head. He's more Dee's than mine, true, and I was told ever since I was a little girl not to play with her toys, however he's playing a very important role in my little sister's life right now, and I can't afford to see him dead and gone before he has a chance to fulfill it."

"Finally..." The goddess told Marller the final demand, and when she finished a grimace lined the demon's face.

"Urd, no, I can't do that."

It was the demon's third mistake,as Urd narrowed her eyes, and before Marller could speak further the demon found herself on her back once more, and she shrieked as a stiletto heel stabbed into the bullet wound. "Can't or won't?" Urd demanded as a bloody hand wrapped around the stocking on her leg. Red smeared all the way down to her ankle. "You've put me in a fine mood, Marller, and I've got no time for games."

"I can't. I _can't_!" Marller screamed, clawing at Urd's leg and kicking at air as her legs tried to find purchase. Gravel rose and fell in a hale at her feet. "I swear to you Urd, I can't remove the curse until Verthandi gives me her access code! I can't!"

"Why not?" The silver hair woman twisted her heel, grinding the spike further into the wound. Marller howled.

"Because...because-" The demon panted, unable to voice any words through her pain, and Urd relieved the pressure of her heel. Marller swallowed air and tried again. "Because...as-as bad as you are, Urd...the boss is worse." The blond visibly shuddered. "It doesn't...doesn't matter what you d-do to me. My boss will make it worse."

Urd narrowed her eyes until they were little more than slits, and the stiletto heel, stained red with Marller's blood, hung threateningly over Marller's injury once more. The demon tensed, yet Urd did no more but allow it to hover, a warning of things to come.

"We'll just have to take care of that now, won't we?"

* * *

Belldandy wasn't sure how the two of them had managed to arrive there, in the old church on the other side of town, resting amid the remains of what had once been a western neighborhood. The mortal and the goddess had somehow managed a trip across town by bus after a discovery that Keiichi had left his wallet in his jacket, and though the yen was small, it had provided them with enough fare to leave the area.

Keiichi had dozed on the bus. Something that relieved Belldandy. The man looked more and more exhausted as time passed, and the goddess could only hope sleep would replenish his strength. Yet his sleep had been restless, and several times he'd woke gasping for breath. One time he'd even screamed. The bus driver had threatened to kick them off after that, and Keiichi hadn't allowed himself to sleep again.

Blast. Marller couldn't use Keiichi's eyes if they were closed.

When the bus had reached the end of it's line, the two of them had no choice but to get off, and upon exiting the vehicle, even Keiichi couldn't hide the look of uncertainty on his face. They'd arrived near an old pier that had seen better times; the many stalls and vendors that lined to wooden strip long since abandoned by time. Only the lone fisherman or two remained, along with the scavenger sea birds that eyed their lines hungrily.

They'd begun to walk after that. The rest on the bus seemed to have done Keiichi some good, and at some point in time Keiichi had given Belldandy his socks so the bus driver would allow them on without _too_ much harassment. It helped during the walking, and Belldandy found she no longer winced as often as she once had.

Occasionally a resident of the area would pass them, and more often then not the person would stare at them with large, round eyes-the eyes of a westerner, not the almond eyes of the nationals-before continuing on their path. And who could have blamed them? The two surely made an odd sight; Belldandy, in sweats a size too small and socks whose bottoms had turned black with dirt, and Keiichi, who staggered more than he walked, hood pulled up to hide his face and hands buried in the sleeves of his pockets, leaving no skin to be touched by the light of the sun.

It had been Keiichi, strangely enough, who'd lead her to the church. In hindsight, perhaps the cursed man was simply trying to find a place to escape the sun-his thoughts more and more reflecting the _Rakshasa _he was becoming rather than simply searching for a place void of people. A wire fence surrounded the building's perimeter, yet Keiichi had found the gate that would allow them entrance with a broken lock, and so the two managed past the first obstacle with little incident.

It soon became obvious why the lock had been broken upon entering the old church itself. Graffiti covered the walls and the multiple pews within, and the ground was littered with everything from broken glass to used needles. In one corner of the worshiping center, several of the pews had been moved to one corner, surrounding a metal trash can covered in soot and rust. The pews in the center were covered with towels and rags that smelled of sweat and rot, thankfully empty of their owners.

Underneath the wooden benches Keiichi had found an assortment of bronze bullet shells, one of which still held a bullet, as well as a cooking knife that had rusted beyond use, a long, thick, heavy chain, and an iron pipe that had probably been a part of the church's water system. He'd grabbed the pipe and hadn't let go of it since.

"What now?" Keiichi licked his lips nervously. Though the air smelled heavily of salt water and mildew and the paint had all but peeled from from the walls and support pillars in the church, the ceiling has stubbornly refused to cave in on itself. As such the rooftop remained whole, allowing Keiichi to remove his hood. The man clutched his make-shift weapon with both hands. His head throbbed painfully in tune with his heart, which beat a fast and erratic pulse against Keiichi's skull. His eyes felt like they were pulsing too, the world seeming to flash against his heartbeat and leaving the young man aware of the bright light at his back.

Belldandy had been kind. Though he still caught flashes of the burning light that encased her from his peripheral vision, she stayed at his back, as much out if his vision as possible. The goddess had no idea how grateful he was for the act; since awakening under an umbrella, Belldandy had gone from the goddess Keiichi knew to a burning wraith of light. It terrified him as much as it burned him, and when he'd first seen her in that aspect, a great and raw terror had taken hold of him, whispering of death if he couldn't get rid of it. Belldandy's voice coming from the monstrous entity was the only reassurance he had that it was indeed the goddess who spoke from the being, and now Keiichi placed his faith on that voice, it being the only thing he dared in a world where a cloudy sun tried to kill him.

Now the goddess touched his shoulder lightly, and Keiichi did his best not to flinch at her touch, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. Her touch felt as though it would leave blisters on his shoulder, it was so hot. "We wait. They are after me. In a den such as this, Marller and her beasts will not be long away." He heard a chime of metal clinking together, and though Keiichi was curious as to what the goddess had conjured, he kept his eyes away from her.

The man swallowed, though it did little to ease his nerves. _The monsters from my dream. The hunters._ Keiichi adjusted his grip on the iron pipe, shifting to wipe one hand, than the other, on his pants legs. From somewhere in the alcove above, something banged and clattered. Rats. _They're here._ Keiichi set his jaw, his gaze drifting skyward and catching a brief glimpse of movement in the rafters. _That's them alright._ Keiichi tightened his grip on the pipe. _I'm going to kill every last one of them._

A shriek came from his right, and he heard Belldandy gasp behind him. _She's looking left. You look left too._ The light grew on the corner of his right eye, and so Keiichi followed his own advice, looking to _his_ left and finding one of the monsters slowly emerging from the shadows. His heart fluttered weakly upon gazing at the creature, and short-breathed, Keiichi smiled lucidly at the beast.

At least this thing didn't hurt to look at like Belldandy. Hell, in the right light, the thing almost looked human. In fact...

_I must be going mad. That fucking demon has literally driven me insane. That's not a monster. It doesn't even look like a monster. That's a fucking woman! _A woman, naked as the day she was born and whose flesh was pallid and sickly looking. Keiichi stared openly at the stranger, and when their gazes met, red eyes stared back at him. She looked wary and scared, her gaze drifting from Keiichi to what he had to guess was Belldandy behind him, her expression confused.

_What are you doing?_ Her mouth moved, yet nothing but an agonizing howl escaped her throat. Somehow, Keiichi understood her. _Are you mad? That thing will kill you!_ The woman pointed behind Keiichi, and without thinking the youth followed it behind him and to the burning entity that was Belldandy.

One of the beasts leaped at her, only it wasn't a beast, wasn't a monster, it was a _man_, as naked and pale as the woman Keiichi had first spied, leaping at the bright beast that wasn't a beast but was Belldandy, only for it to strike him down. The pallid man evaporated into nothing when struck, and his eyes burning, Keiichi looked back to the woman, blinking through the spots in his eyes.

For a moment it seemed as though both woman and monster stood before Keiichi, speaking as one with their howl-speech. _Please! You must get away from it! Its already killed five men!_ The woman waved Keiichi over to her urgently, and Keiichi stared at her in uncertainty. What the hell was he looking at?

_Forget him! The kid's obviously deaf and dumb._ Another man, different from the one before, emerged near the woman, and with a deep scowl on his face he marched his way towards Keiichi. _Why else would he be hanging around that monster? Probably doesn't know any better._ A hand, hot and clammy, wrapped around Keiichi's wrist, and for a moment, just like the woman, the man's image seemed torn between monster and human. _Get the hell out of here, boy. All you're doing is getting in the way!_

Where the man had been, the monster took his place, its jaws wrapped securely around his wrist. Keiichi screamed, and before the man even realized what he was doing, the pipe swung down upon the creature's head. His arm rose and fell like a butcher carving meat, and when finally the monster released Keiichi, the man found himself staring once more into a pair of red eyes. They bored into his mind, and try as he might, Keiichi found himself unable to look away from the man, even as his beaten and swollen head evaporated into nothing.

With a yell, Keiichi stumbled back away from the dissipating man, a look of horror on his face as the pale man, as the monster, disappeared. "What did I-who did I just-" He bumped into something, and wild eyed Keiichi turned to meet it, iron pipe raised in front of him as if it were a sword.

It was Belldandy, still bright and burning, yet no longer the wraith he remembered awakening to. Keiichi could dimly make out the bright silhouette of Belldandy's form in the halo that surrounded her, though it still pained him to look at her. The goddess' body still burned fiercely when he grazed her, and when she turned to look at him Keiichi beheld eyes as bright as the sky on a cloudless, sunny day. They scalded him, seeming to tear into Keiichi with a ferocity that terrified him, and when the woman spoke, it seemed to be with a great and booming voice he could not understand.

Keiichi closed his eyes against the glare of her body, clutching his ears against Belldandy's voice. "What the _fuck_ is going on!" He howled.

_Traitor! _

_Kill him! Kill him and the monster both!_

_Stop him!_

He understood _that_ well enough, and when Keiichi opened his eyes once more, three more pale men came charging towards him, their expressions twisted in a rage that made them look more demonic than human. "Fuck _off_!" Keiichi's next attack had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with panic. With both hands wrapped in a dead-man's grip around the pipe, Keiichi swung his weapon into the nearest man's head, and the assailant went down without a word.

The others swerved around their fallen comrade without hesitation, and one leaped for Keiichi, hands entwined in a large club. A golden pole thrust out from above Keiichi's head before he could react, and it struck the falling man in the gut, skewering the man and leaving him hanging on the glowing, golden metal. Thinking nothing of where the pole had originated, Keiichi set his gaze on his final opponent, who had gone from a man to something that could not decide if it preferred the face of a beast or a human. It lunged at him, the jaws of a beast snapping over the gnashing teeth of a man, and Keiichi jabbed its muzzle-mouth with the butt of his pipe, knocking it to the side where momentum carried it past the youth.

Keiichi was panting, and his heart beat in his throat. _These people are still monsters._ He thought. _These people are still monsters. These people are still monsters._ The man repeated the words in a mantra in his head, desperately latching hold of a justifiable reason for attacking-fuck, killing-the men who attacked him. Belldandy was the one he wanted to protect;the very woman who looked like a golden monster of light in his eyes.

There came a large crash from the pews in the center of the hall, and from the corner of one eye Keiichi spied one of the wooden benches fly into a wall. When the student turned towards it, he was forced to duck as one of the beasts-larger by far by any of its brethren-snatched a pew from the ground and threw it as if it were little more than a twig towards him. Keiichi dove to the ground, and the bench flew over his head.

A scream rose behind him, human and female, and with a start Keiichi turned just in time to watch as the pew fell to the ground, Belldandy beneath it. The goddess hit the ground hard, and sensing an advantage, the monsters swarmed on top the woman, burying her under a mound of monster-flesh.

Keiichi swore, scrambling to his feet and launching him at the mass of beasts, the pipe smashing down upon one monster with a howl. "Goddamn it!" He swore. "Get the fuck off her!" The man beat down on the mass, fueled by rage and fear and adrenaline, striking one, than another, and ignoring the snaps and snarls from the men that grew more and more bestial by the moment.

Sometimes the scratches grew lucky, other times the bites went wild, yet Keiichi felt none of it, barely recognizing the blood on his arms as his. "Get off!" He howled. A thick black miasma had begun to swirl around the mass as he attacked. Those wounded dissipated into nothingness, only to be replaced by more, always more. It was a never-ending process, and Keiichi could feel himself grow desperate as more and more of the beasts appeared to replace those fallen, and the young man felt his arms burn heavily with every strike.

One of the creatures grew bolder than the rest, launching itself from the swarm and seeming to toss Keiichi several feet from where he stood. The man hit the ground hard, and he cried out in pain as Keiichi was sent tumbling into one of the pews. There was an iron clang from somewhere far off; his pipe, lost in his tumble to the ground.

A groan escaped his throat as Keiichi pushed himself up to his hands and knees, wincing as his arms throbbed and burned. A shadow fell over him, and when he looked up, the pew-thrower towered over him, lips pulled back in a snarl. One taloned hand, thick and black and muscular, reached down and grabbed him by the jacket. It's hand was big enough to engulf his whole torso. It started dragging Keiichi further away from the dog pile on Belldandy, and when Keiichi fought against it's grip, his vision wavered and the monster changed back into the woman he first saw.

"Let me go. Let me go!" Keiichi cried. "I have to help Belldandy, I promised I'd-" A low warning growl silenced Keiichi, and when he looked up at the woman-beast, she spoke.

_I told you that the bright monster is dangerous. You'll be killed if you continue, if not by that monster than by your fellow man. I'm not going to allow that to happen._

Keiichi gaped at her in bewilderment, and his struggles increased by a tenth-fold. "No-you don't understand, It's not what you-I'm not-God damn it! _Let me go!_"

"You'll let him go, if you know what's good for you."

It was a new voice, one that seemed to echo throughout the church. The woman who dragged him halted, and both Keiichi and the beast-woman searched wildly for the owner. The pale woman saw the owner first, and when she did she hissed. Keiichi looked back to the red-eyed woman, and when her lips curled back in a snarl, her jaws seemed to stretch past her her ears. The sight was wrong enough to make his stomach roll, and so instead Keiichi followed her gaze to the owner of the voice.

The man blinked. Once. Twice. Three times and he still couldn't make out what he was staring at. Chaotic swirls of light danced in his vision, and whenever Keiichi thought he might make out a limb, might spy a feather, it would change, leaving the man dizzy and dazed. Whatever it was, it stood in the entrance of one of the hallways, and as Keiichi stared at it, the..._thing_ moved towards them.

The woman hissed once more and released Keiichi, seeming to forget the man existed in the presence of the new creature. She backpedaled, before turning and sprinting towards a hallway in the opposing wall, disappearing into the darkness.

The twirling mass paused as it encroached upon the man. "That goes for the rest of you as well. Be gone with you. There's nothing left here for you anymore."

Keiichi turned his gaze to the swarm of monsters around Belldandy, finding the creatures-some more resembling red-eyed men, others the monsters they were-staring warily at the newcomer, their expressions unsure and distrustful. He spied Belldandy at their feet,a golden being pinned beneath the pew that had fallen on top of her. A golden staff laid within arms-reach at her side. The woman wasn't moving.

Hesitantly, one of them took a step back. Another seemed to follow its move. And than, in a silent wave, the pack turned and departed, vanishing into the shadows from whence they emerged. It left Belldandy and Keiichi and the creature that had chased them off, and with bated breath Keiichi picked himself up, only to fall to his rump once more as the being approached him. The man crawled backwards away from it on hands and feet until one hand collided with something hard and solid, followed by his head, his back. A wall.

The thing followed after him, coming to a halt five feet away from him. "Like what you see, Keiichi?" It seemed to kneel, and what might have passed for a head tilted itself to one side.

There was a teasing note in the voice, one he recognized, and gaping he said the name aloud. "Urd?" His voice was raw and broken. It sounded like he'd swallowed gravel. It certainly felt as if he had.

Laughter emerged from a mouth he couldn't see. "Have I been gone so long that you don't even recognize me anymore?" The thing that spoke with Urd's voice leaned in close to his face, and Keiichi shied away. It made the creature pause, regarding him thoughtfully. "You don't see me, do you?" It asked, and the teasing note vanished.

"No. I don't." Keiichi replied, fighting the urge to act like the woman and run out of the room. "I see-"

Urd hushed him before he could speak further. "No, no don't tell me. I don't think I want to know. Some things are best left unknown." There came a long pause, and than Urd spoke again. "Close your eyes, Keiichi."

"You're not going to slit my throat, are you?" Keiichi rasped. It was meant to be a joke, but with his throat the way it was, the humor was lost in the question.

Urd seemed to sense it none the less. "Perhaps. You'll never know unless you close them though."

Keiichi grimaced and did as bid. His ears told him more than his eyes could, and he listed to the soft rustling of clothes and something tinker on the ruined ground. It sounded hollow, like a glass or a bottle. Than something warm and damp pressed itself against his eyes, and Keiichi jumped.

"Easy. It's just my hand." Something equally warm and damp wrapped around his wrist, guiding his hand to his eyes. He felt smooth skin and fingers pressed against his eyes, and when his wrist was released Keiichi kept his hand against Urd's, finding a human familiarity he was afraid to loose after so many illusions of things that might or might not have been human.

"Urd, why do you have sweaty palms?"

"I get nervous when I touch little boys." Urd replied sarcastically. "No, I have a potion on my hands. It should help clear your vision, but I need you to listen to me in order for it to work. I'm going to count down from ten. While I'm doing that, I need you to think of me. Remember what I look like-not what you saw when I entered this area, what you know I look like. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good." The woman began counting down from ten, and as instructed, Keiichi did his best to imagine Urd in his head, picturing the dark-skinned woman and holding her there until 'one' came and went and the hand removed itself from his eyes. He released his own grip against her hand, and when instructed Keiichi opened his eyes.

Violet eyes bore into him, and again Keiichi jumped. Urd's face was so close to his their noses were almost touching. "Well?"

"What are you trying to do, kiss me?" Keiichi responded, and Urd's face broke into a smile. The silver-haired woman pulled back. Keiichi wondered how she was able to walk in those high stilettos. "What did you do to me?"

The goddess eased herself to her feet with all the grace of a cat. At her feet a small, empty glass vial lay. The woman kicked it and sent the vial skidding under the various rows of pews. "You were seeing too much." Urd responded. "Holy men consider themselves lucky to see half of what you must have witnessed with those eyes and often spend a lifetime disciplining themselves in the hopes of reaching that level of sight."

A tan hand offered itself to Keiichi, and the man took it gratefully, allowing Urd to hoist him to his feet. She tapped him in the center of his forehead. "Some people call it the third eye. Others see it as a halo. Whatever your people call it, it was open because of Marller, and you were seeing more than your mind could handle. People who lack the discipline for such things often go mad, and so all I did was close it."

Keiichi rubbed his head where Urd had tapped him. "So...I won't be seeing monsters everywhere anymore?"

"Not unless their your own figments of your imagination." Urd replied cryptically. The goddess released his hand and turned away from him. "Now come. We still need to make sure Belldandy's still alive."

Keiichi paled. "Urd, don't joke about that." Though his body protested every step, the man jogged past Urd and to Belldandy, grabbing the pew end closest to the fallen woman and lifting it off her as much as he could. The wood was solid and heavy, even with its exposure to the elements and smelling strongly of rot. Urd jogged to the other end and together, they managed to move the wood off the brunette.

"Don't touch her. I need to make sure there aren't any internal injuries we can't see." Urd warned, and Keiichi stood off to one side, fidgeting anxiously as he watched Urd work. The goddess worked with deft hands, pausing occasionally and muttering under her breath with a shake of her head. Finally Urd waved him over, and Keiichi hurriedly approached.

"Well?"

The goddess looked up at him with a wane smile. "She's tougher than she looks, poor kid." Gently the goddess rolled her sister onto her back. "Nothing major, thank the Almighty. She's got some deep cuts, and she's going to be black and blue all over by the time she wakes up, but otherwise she should be okay." The goddess shook her head ruefully, scooping Belldandy up into her arms. "I'm going to bathe you in a tub of disinfectant when we get back home." She muttered.

Keiichi winced, the cuts on his own arms throbbing in sympathy at the very thought of disinfectant. Belldandy_ did _ have some pretty nasty gashes on her body, none of which looked very shallow. One in particular caught his eye-a deep tear into her collarbone that had cleaved itself onto her breast. The gray of her sweatshirt was stained black with blood, yet it looked as though the wound had already clotted. _Glad I'm not in her shoes._

"Right after I give Keiichi his bath."

_Spoke too soon. _"Don't you dare." He grumbled. Walking over, he took Belldandy from Urd's arms. "I've got her. It's not right for a woman like you to be carrying a person when there's a perfectly able body right next to you." His arms trembled for a brief moment as his body protested the new weight, and for a second Keiichi was certain he was going to make a fool of himself and piss off Urd all at once by dropping Belldandy.

Yet his arms grew stable, and after the first step Keiichi was certain he wouldn't drop her. Urd said nothing when Keiichi took the unconscious woman from her arms, simply sent him a look who's meaning alluded him. Instead the goddess lead him out of the church.

The sun was setting by the time they emerged. A black van was waiting for them upon exiting the fenced perimeter, different by far from the limo he recalled first meeting Urd with. A man, tall and pale with hair so blond it looked almost white stood leaning against the van, and Urd hailed him with a shout in a foreign language.

The man straightened at the silver-haired woman's call before banging on the door he was leaning against. The window rolled down and the pale man stuck his head inside, pointing back towards the trio. When his head emerged once more, the man waved them over, and Urd led the way towards the van.

The back door slid open and three more men popped out, one who's skin was darker than Urd's and another who reminded Keiichi of Tamiya and Otaki. The other had dark hair cropped short in a manner that screamed 'military'. The four moved with a fluidity that spoke of a deep camaraderie, and almost wordlessly they worked, popping open the van's back and clearing items out of the way. He wondered what was in some of the long black cases they were leaning against the car, but when one of them, the pale man, caught Keiichi staring and grinned, Keiichi decided he was better off not knowing.

At Urd's gentle prodding Keiichi moved towards the back of the van, finding the seats had been folded down at a white sheet had been draped over it. The mountain man slapped a meaty hand down on the cloth, and even with the language barrier, Keiichi caught the message behind the slap. Carefully he laid Belldandy down, and as he moved out of the way Urd hopped into the back, removing a medical case and withdrawing several items from it before closing it and handing it off to the military man.

A few more words in that language again, and than her gaze drifted to Keiichi. "Follow Wiley." She pointed to the dark man. "Listen to his instructions. You're getting stitches before you get in my car."

The thought of stitches made Keiichi's stomach do back flips. The last time he'd had stitches was when he'd awoken in a hospital after driving Aoshima's car. The memories were not good ones. Yet none the less the man followed Wiley, who grinned and led him to the passenger seat of the van.

Wiley, it turned out, was a linguist. His Japanese was good, with only a hint of an accent that marked him for American. The other two, the pale Kasper and the military grunt Jasper, weren't so lucky, though Kasper, Keiichi discovered, did speak German. And while practicing the foreign language helped the student ignore some of the pain, it wasn't enough to hold Keiichi back from screaming and cursing when Jasper splashed something that smelled only vaguely like alcohol on his wounds. Whatever the liquid was caused his battered arms to grow numb withing minutes, and when Jasper traded the medicine for a needle, Keiichi barely felt the tug of the string as the man went to work on him.

When it was getting to the point where it was dark enough that Wiley needed to fetch a flashlight, all that was left was to bandage Keiichi's arms and they were done. The small group traded stories to help pass the time, something Kasper seemed to have no limit to, and as Wiley bandaged his arms and acted as a translator Japser slipped off with the remaining medical supplies, returning like a ghost with Urd in tow.

"You boys about ready?"

The woman had to ask the question twice; once in Japanese, once in that foreign language-Norwegian, Wiley had told him-and there were nods and murmurs of agreement from the entire group. The goddess smiled. "Lets get out of this shit hole. Time to go home." The woman gave out new instructions in Norwegian and the men departed, most of them heading towards another car that had appeared while Keiichi was getting his stitches.

Unsure of what else to do, Keiichi followed Urd. Belldandy was lying in the back seat, raised once more for transportation purposes. A blanket covered her body, but from where her arms poked out, Keiichi could see bandages identical to his own against her skin. Belldandy's expression was peaceful after the events of the day, and the soft rise and fall of her chest relieved him.

Urd patted him on the shoulder. "Come on." She said. "Let's go home."

* * *

_Comments of a Madwoman: The ending was left intentionally open-ended for what would have been the next chapter, written by another member of the reboot team. I'll leave you all to come up with what happens next and what could have happened before, as from what I know there are no more efforts to continue the reboot. _


End file.
